Unbroken
by Deadly Beauty
Summary: Krillin and 18 are both hopelessly lost in their lives after Cell, neither of them coping with the way their worlds have changed. When their lives are suddenly brought together in the most complicated way, they will be forced to confront not only this new challenge, but also the past demons that plague them, in order to be whole. K/18. **FINAL CHAPTER ONLINE NOW**
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Dragonball franchise. This is just a work of my imagination.

A/N: Hello everyone and welcome to my first piece of writing in 10 years! I am so thrilled to be back stretching my creative wings again and I hope that you will all enjoy what I have to offer. I feel that while my writing has definitely matured during my absence, it still has the same style and tone as all of my old work, so if you have enjoyed my writing in the past, I think you will like this too! Plus of course I am writing lots of Krillin/18 goodness!

A word of warning, this prologue contains a sex scene, though it is very tastefully done and it's only short. If you don't like it, just skip it, I think it will be the only one in the story, so you should be safe after this. There is also some swearing, but again, I don't believe it's excessive.

With that said, please have a read and let me know what you think! I am thoroughly enjoying writing this, and I hope that you will enjoy reading it. Constructive criticism is always encouraged, I look forward to hearing what you all think!

Also, please excuse any formatting errors, I am doing my best to navigate the system this website has for uploading, but I'm not sure how its going to come out! I'm sure i'll get the hang of it as the story progresses! But if anyone has any tips on how to make it upload looking all pretty, I'm all ears!

\- Deadly Beauty

 **Unbroken  
**

 **Prologue  
**

18 sat alone on the roof of the small pink house, her knees drawn up to her chest, her hair whipping wildly across her face.

All around her, she could hear the low, ominous rumble of thunder. Lightning bolts – which had been few at first, were now striking almost continuously, creeping their way ever closer towards the safe haven of the small island. Below her, the palm trees began to sway more and more violently as the wind continued to pick up.

If she was going to leave, she had to leave now.

She continued to sit, her eyes constantly scanning the horizon.

Rain began to fall; fat, salty droplets, first one, then two. She soon felt a splash on her bare leg and with that, she was gone. No warning, no goodbye and no promise of return.

Below the roof, safely away from the elements of the storm, Krillin watched her disappear into the dull grey sky.

The first time he had seen her here was a few weeks earlier. He had been sitting on the roof, getting some fresh air at his master's insistence, when he noticed her, sitting on the big boulder by the water's edge. His first reaction was anger. How dare she come here and taunt him with her existence. She had no right.

Roshi had stopped him from confronting her that day. 'This was his island' he had said 'and who could and could not use it was no business of Krillins.' After firing of a string of expletives at the old man, Krillin had stormed off up to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him like a moody teenager.

Thunder cracked above, startling Krillin from his daydream. The rain was coming down hard now, as a fierce tropical storm battered the island. Rolling over on his bed, away from the window, he decided that this kind of weather suited him just fine.

Closing his eyes, a vision of Goku flashed vividly in front of him, and just as quickly as they had shut, his eyes flung back open. He couldn't take this anymore, the guilt was too much for the poor man to handle. Tears stung at his eyes and he made no effort to stop them from falling.

It had been six months since his life had been turned irreversibly upside down, and while he now found himself having slightly more good days than bad, he still found his guilt almost impossible to cope with. No matter which way he looked at it, or how he justified it, he always came back to the same conclusion. His actions had resulted in Goku's death. That was it. He would never be able to forgive himself and as his self-inflicted punishment, he had found himself shutting out everyone who cared about him. They shouldn't have to be constantly reminded of what he had cost them.

The only way forward for him, was to live in loneliness and isolation, it was the only way for him to avoid bringing anymore pain to himself or to anyone else.

* * *

"What happened to your beard" 18 asked, nonchalantly, as she landed delicately on the sand.

Krillin blinked slowly, looking up at her from where he was sitting on small front porch, she always managed to appear so silently, he noted. "It was itching me," he replied truthfully, "Plus I finally realized that it looked ridiculous"

"That it did." Krillin watched silently as she wandered off down the beach and took up her usual position on the big boulder.

It had been about 8 weeks since 18's first visit to his home. She would come sporadically, sometimes for several days in a row, and then suddenly not for weeks. She would sometimes engage in pointless small talk with Krillin, but more often than not, she would just sit on the rock, or occasionally on the roof, in silence, doing whatever it was that she did.

It was a beautiful sunny day on the island, 18 settled down on top of the big warm rock which sat just down by the shore, basking like a lizard in the sun, scanning the skies as she always did.

She was watching for her brother. For 17. She had scoured the globe looking for him, she had retraced the journey they had made on their search for Goku hundreds of times, desperate for any sign that he might have been there too.

That was how she had ended up here the first time, and what kept bringing her back. She wasn't interested in anyone else in the world, only her brother. She couldn't bear the thought of never finding him, that she might be the only one of her kind left. She needed someone who understood what she had been through. She needed 17.

And so she found herself making her way from one destination to the next. Waiting in each one as long as her mind would let her. She spent a lot of time in the mountains which looked down onto the Son's home, where she had stumbled across a small, long forgotten cabin. It made sense to her, to wait here. This was where their programming had originally wanted to send them. Where Goku should have been.

Inevitably though, she would grow tired of the loneliness of the mountains, she hated the cold and her thoughts were often not her friends. It was then that she would start her journey over again, tracing the path that she had made with her brother and 16, what seemed like a lifetime ago. She came to the island more often than most of the other places she searched, partially because this was another location that her programming had suggested there would be a high probability of locating the target, and partially because she felt slightly less alone out here.

She didn't often have anything to say to the residents of this place, but she found some kind of comfort to knowing they were nearby. That she wasn't the only person left in the world who knew she existed.

That was how it had begun, but as the days had grown into weeks, and eventually into months, 18 had been forced to face the grim reality that 17 wasn't looking for her. She didn't know how she had survived, she had no memories of the event. The last thing she remembered from that time was the searing pain of Cell's tail clamping down around her. She remembered kicking and screaming and being taken over by blind panic and fear. And then nothing. Not a single thing until she woke up high above the clouds at Dendes tower – and she hadn't hung around there long enough to ask any questions.

It made sense to her then, without knowing the full story, that if she was here, 17 should be here to. Whatever had happened to her to bring her back, must of also happened to him. So why couldn't she find him? Was he trying to find her?

A sudden gust of warm ocean air blew across the island, flicking grains of sand up into 18's face and bringing her back to reality. She wasn't sure how long she had zoned out for, but she was now acutely aware of the fact that Krillin was staring at her from his perch further up the beach.

"What?!" she snapped at him, her tone coming off as harsher than she had intended.

"Nothing!" Krillin sputtered, clearly embarrassed that he had been caught out. "You just looked so deep in thought"

"I was" 18 replied, her voice a little kinder this time.

She watched as Krillin stood up and walked down the beach towards her, he was weary not to get to close, he knew how she felt about her personal space, but now he didn't have to yell halfway across the island at her. "You know," he began timidly, "I was there too. If you ever wanna talk about it." He knew exactly what she had been thinking about it. He got the exact same pained expression on his face when he thought about Cell, too.

18's first instinct was to give Krillin a piece of her mind. What they went through were two completely different things, and he would never be able to understand. But as she whipped her head around to face him, she was greeted by big black eyes filled with nothing but sadness and loneliness and her rage slipped away. She understood how lonely he was, how hard it was to have no one to talk you down from the silly places your mind could take you.

"I come here," she started, after taking a few minutes to compose herself, "I come here because I am looking for my brother"

"Oooh" Krillins body slumped as he realized that 18 must not know what had happened that fateful day.

"I mean, if I'm here, he must be out there somewhere too, right? She asked, more to herself than to Krillin. "Right?" she asked again after a moment, all too aware of the fact that he hadn't replied.

"18…" he trailed off. He didn't want to be the one to have to explain this. Why could he never be the one who got to deliver the good news? He fidgeted around nervously, bouncing from one foot to the other and rubbing the back of his head. 18 stood silently, her arms crossed over her chest, staring the small warrior down. She was beginning to lose her patience with him.

"18," he eventually found it in himself to pick up the conversation, "I don't think your brother is out there."

18 felt a hot lump catch in her throat, but she quickly swallowed it down, hoping that no emotions had shown on her face. "And why do you think that?" she asked, thankful that the panic she was starting to feel had not yet made it into her voice.

"Because Cell only regurgitated you."

"Regurgitated?" 18 almost regurgitated at the thought of being spat up by that monster.

"Uh-huh" Krillin nodded somberly, "Gohan, he, well, he punched Cell right in the gut" he said with a small chuckle, "and it must have been one hell of a punch because he spat you out and reverted back to his second form."

18 blinked slowly, not quite believing the absurdity of what she was hearing.

"That was how Gohan and Goku were able to defeat him in the end. But when he, Cell, exploded, he was still in his second form"

"17 was still inside of him" 18 finished Krillins train of thought.

"I'm sorry 18." Krillin looked up at the blonde beauty before him. Her expression was blank, but her eyes were burning.

It took a few seconds for her thoughts to catch up to her, but when they did, 18 turned her back on Krillin and walked a few steps away from him. That was where she stood when something inside of her snapped. Krillin had to cover his face with his forearm to stop sand flying into his mouth and eyes, as a haunting cry came from the woman in front of him and an aura of white hot energy exploded around her.

Half a second after that, she was nothing more than a speck of light on the horizon.

* * *

Krillin took a deep swig of his beer and pressed the bottle into the sand so it didn't fall over. It tasted delicious, and he could feel the alcohol beginning to numb his brain a little. He had come to know this feeling, slightly drunk, intimately over the last few months. His mind was still trying to process what had happened between himself and 18 earlier in the day.

She had been coming to the island semi-regularly for the last few weeks, and the relationship they had been forming was a strange one. It was cold and aloof – often times they were downright mean to each other, but Krillin never got the vibe that either of them truly meant it. Sometimes it even felt kind of….. Flirty? He was lonely and trying to cope as best he could with the loss of his friend, and she was lonely and looking for her only relative, who was never going to be found. Together they had formed some kind of strange, lonely companionship. He wondered if she would ever come back after she had blasted off the island this afternoon.

The sun was beginning to sink below the sea, everything around him was quiet, the only sound was the waves gently lapping against the shore. The air was warm and inviting. If you didn't know any better, it would have been perfect.

Taking another long sip of his beer, Krillin finished the bottle and dropped it down onto the sand. He was standing by the side of the small house, hanging his clean laundry up to dry on the line. Picking up a shirt from the basket, he reached for a peg, but he never made it, because the next thing he knew, he was in the surf.

Quickly he found his footing and stood up, coughing and spluttering up sea water. He was still holding the shirt in his hand. But before he had even had a second to process what had just happened, he was knocked even further out to sea. Underwater again, he took in another lungful of seawater. This time, he shot out of the water and high up into the sky, panting hard.

He scanned the small island and surrounding ocean for whatever had pushed him, but he saw, nor sensed, nothing. He knew better than that though, nothing always meant something and the warrior instincts in him kicked in as he dropped into a fighting stance.

Krillin saw what was coming next only a second before it happened. 18, charging through the twilight, straight at him. She head butted him right in the gut, sending him tumbling backward through the sky.

This was all beginning to make sense now, Krillin thought to himself as he repositioned his body in the sky. 20 seconds ago, he had been hanging laundry, now it seemed as though his brain had finally caught up with his body. He probably shouldn't have had that fourth beer.

18 charged at Krillin again, swinging her fist blindly at his head. He seemed to have caught up to the situation now, and he dodged the blow. She continued on the offensive, throwing punch after kick at her opponent.

Who did he think he was, telling her her brother was dead? What did he even know about the situation? About 17? About her? Ever since she had fled the island earlier in the day, she had been getting madder and madder. Of course 17 was out there, he just had to be. She had since been to all the spots she usually checked on her searches for him, sure that this would be the time she would find him. She'd show Krillin he was wrong. But as usual, he wasn't there, nor was there any signs that he ever had been.

Rather than accept the fact that Krillin may have been right – she just wasn't ready to acknowledge what that would mean for her, she chose to let her anger at the human bubble away. She had to be angry, she didn't know what other emotions to feel. This was his fault. He had had the option to lie to her, yet instead he had chosen to be needlessly cruel by giving her the truth.

Well, she had decided, she was going to show him what needlessly cruel really looked like. Two could play at that game.

That was what had led her to this moment. She was by now, totally blinded by rage, there was no plan to her actions, no rhyme or reason.

"Get back here!" she cried as she swung her foot at Krillins head, and missed. He darted backward, away from the onslaught.

"18," he began, thinking maybe he could reason with her logical side. He was stopped short though, by a fist careening towards his face. Instinctively, he reached out and caught her fist in his own.

They both felt it, the second their skin had touched. Like a sudden jolt of electricity had surged through them. It only lasted for the briefest of moments, but there was no denying it had happened. It was 18 who regained her composure first though, and with a heart wrenching scream, she brought her fists together and slammed them down into Krillins back, sending him hurtling down onto the beach below.

He landed with a hard thud and a face full of sand. His first thought was that he was now grateful for the beers, they were probably helping to numb his pain receptors, though he knew he would feel it come morning. It had been a long time since he had been beaten up like this, and now he remembered why he tried to avoid it. Slowly, he stood up and began to brush the sand from himself. At least nothing felt broken

"Hey!"

Krillin looked up just in time to see 18 lunge at him. They sparred on the beach for a few more minutes until he managed to swipe 18's feet out from under her and she fell to the sand.

"Enough!" he cried, panting heavily as he tried to regain both his breath and his composure. "What the hell is going on here?!" he demanded, his voice thick with frustration.

18 didn't make any attempt to get up. She was spent, both physically and emotionally, she had been on edge for hours now, and she had literally nothing left to give.

"I can't be the only one left." She eventually spoke "What the fuck am I supposed to do now?!"

Krillin shrugged his shoulders and turned his back on the blonde. He really wasn't in the mood for this, it was hard to feel compassion for someone who had just used you as a personal punching bag. "Dunno" he muttered as he headed back towards the house.

18 glared daggers at Krillins retreating figure. He wasn't wearing a shirt, and he was still wet from his dip in the ocean a few minutes earlier. His muscles, still pumped from the fight, glistened under the starlight. It would have been impossible not to notice how defined his body was.

He was almost back at the house by the time 18 got her thoughts back on track. With a dissatisfied grunt, she jumped up off the ground and launched herself at Krillin, collecting him as she zoomed past, she slammed him into the side of the house, pinning him down by his shoulders. Their faces were now only inches apart.

"Don't you dare turn your back on me" she hissed.

Krillin didn't try to struggle against 18's hold on him. They both knew that if she truly wanted him dead, it would be been done quicker than he could even blink, so he felt confident to push the boundaries between them. "What are you going to do about it?"

Scowling, 18 pressed her palms just a little harder into his shoulder blades. Now she felt him flinch under her control. Annoyingly though, his face gave away no sign of pain. He was still staring her down, his eyes filled with steely determination.

Her heart was pounding in her chest.

What happened next took her by surprise, yet somehow, didn't surprise her at all. Who had actually initiated that first kiss would later be a point of debate between them, but for right now, it didn't matter, because the fuse had been lit. There was no stopping this now.

18 kissed Krillin forcefully, almost violently, and in return he pried her lips open with his tongue, using it to explore every inch of her mouth.

He flipped them both around, so that now it was 18 pressed against the side of the house, his hands feverishly caressed her body, her milky skin felt as soft as silk under his fingers.

She tangled herself around Krillins firm body, it had been so long since she had touched another person. Her legs wrapped around his waist and her fingers became lost within his dark, damp hair, she pulled him as close to her as she possibly could and moaned approvingly against his lips.

Krillin slipped himself inside 18's warm body and they began to find their rhythm. He still had her pressed against the side of the house, her legs still locked tightly around him, neither of their feet were touching the ground. He pinned her wrists above her head as he took control.

18 dug her fingers deep into Krillins hair, using it to pull him in even closer to her, her tongue still locked in an intense battle with his. Neither of them wanting to be the one to relinquish their dominance.

Finally, she pulled away from Krillins lips as she felt herself nearing her peak. Her body began to shudder and convulse and she buried her head in Krillins neck, gasping for air as the wave of pleasure tore through her entire body.

A few seconds later, Krillin joined her; with a long, deep moan, his whole body stiffened and then felt totally relaxed. He could feel his muscles quivering beneath his skin as he regained his breath.

They stayed there, entwined in each other's embrace for a few moments longer than they needed to. Neither of them knew how long it would be until they would get to experience this kind of physical or emotional intimacy again, and so they were both somewhat reluctant to let the moment end.

Neither of them were fools though, they both knew what this was. It had been building between them for weeks. This had never been an act of love, or even of passion. No, this was two people who were both completely broken and utterly alone coming together to try and band aid their pain. Nothing more, nothing less.

* * *

A/N: So there you have it. I hope that you liked it, I know that it doesn't really give away a lot about the direction that this story is going in, but I think it sets the tone nicely and sets up where our characters are all at in their heads. The plot kicks in pretty quickly in chapter one, I promise.

I would love to know what you thought, it's been a long time, so I hope I'm not too rusty!

I am aiming to have the next chapter up in a weeks' time or so, so until then, best wishes!

-D.B


	2. Chapter One

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Dragonball franchise. This is just a work of my imagination.

A/N: Ok, here we go! The first real chapter of Unbroken. Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the prologue. I am glad that people enjoyed it and I hope it intrigued you enough to check out this chapter!

I did hope to have this up a few days ago, but unfortunately, I came off second best in a fight against a microbead in my exfoliator cream, and suffered a pretty sever eye injury! I've been stuck on the couch for the last two days unable to open either of my eyes, so that's been fun with 3 kids! Anyway, I'm on the mend now, but it's not an injury I would recommend!

-D.B.

 **Unbroken**

 **Chapter One**

It was the middle of another warm, balmy night on Kame Island, hundreds of millions of stars twinkled above, coating the small home and surrounding ocean in a magical silver glow.

Far down below the bright stars, under the safe, protective roof of the house, Krillin was out cold. He lay on his stomach, one leg hanging off the bed, the pillow pulled over his head, blissfully ignorant of the world outside. His dreams, for once, were peaceful.

It had been almost two years now, since Cell had inflicted his terror on the world. For the most part, humanity seemed to have moved on, the Cell Games were nothing more than a blip in their collective memory.

Not Krillin though, he had found it – still was finding it, so hard to move forward. The fight against Cell had been the most prepared he had ever been for a battle, Future Trunks had given them a full three years to ready themselves, and at the time Krillin felt he had used them wisely. That this time, he might actually be able to make a difference.

In reality though, he had never been more useless on the battlefield. He likened it to being the strongest ant on the Earth. What good was it being the strongest ant, when even the weakest human could crush you?

What good was it being the strongest human, when your enemies, and allies too for that matter, were the strongest in the universe. What good could you possibly be?

All he had managed to do was get in the way.

Slowly, morning began to roll around. Golden sunlight streamed in through the window, warming the small human's skin. Groggily, Krillin sat up in his bed and rubbed his hands over his eyes and face, the stubble growing on his chin irritated his fingers. He needed to shave today.

Months back, when he had been in the darkest depths of his grief, he had pretty much let all of his personal grooming slip. His once totally smooth, bald head had sprouted a mop of dark hair and a scruffy beard had grown on his chin.

Finally shaving the beard off had marked some kind of a turning point in his recovery – however small it was. He had managed to pull himself out of his grief just long enough to think of himself for 5 minutes and realize how utterly ridiculous he looked.

The hair on his head though, he had actually come to like. He found it comforting not to see the reflection of the man who got his best friend killed every time he walked by a mirror. That man was weak, a coward whom he wanted nothing to do with anymore.

The hair stayed.

Goku's death had changed the ex-monk in every way imaginable. Gone was the happy-go-lucky, carefree Krillin everyone used to know – it was Goku who had always brought out those qualities in him. He had strived to be like him in every way possible.

That Krillin had died alongside his best friend. His brother.

In his place, a new Krillin had been born. This one was cold and uncaring. Goku's death had been his breaking point. He had lost so many people he cared about during his life, and been used by so many that he had trusted, that he just couldn't take it anymore. His once beautiful spirit had finally be cracked.

Now he only had room in his heart for himself. If he refused to let anyone in, it would be impossible for him to get hurt.

He felt like this new, unemotional shell made him strong, but in reality. Krillin was an utterly broken man.

Reluctantly, he threw the warm bed covers off of himself, stood up and stretched his arms up towards the ceiling – a long yawn escaping his lips as he did.

He padded down the worn old stairs and into the kitchen, where he set about making himself a coffee.

That was when he first heard the noise. A shrill, high pitched whine.

He heard it instantly and stopped dead in his tracks, his muscles stiffening in anticipation. He knew he was the only one home, Roshi, with Oolong in tow, had headed off days ago on a trip to visit his old friend the Ox King. They wouldn't be back for at least another week, if not longer. Even the wise old sea turtle who sometimes inhabited the island had headed out to sea and would likely not be back for months.

His hearing was so finely tuned to the silence of this island that the sudden noise was so jarringly out of place it instantly put him on high alert. Often, when he was the only one here, he would go weeks without hearing a single sound, save for the constant gentle lapping of the waves against the shore, and eventually you could block that out too.

Birds seldom flew overhead all the way out here, so he doubted it was that. Kame Island was almost literally in the exact center of a vast and empty ocean, there was nothing else around them for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Even with an air car, the nearest populated coast was four or five hours drive away. Krillin had managed the flight once in just under two hours, but that had been because he was trying to break the record, rocketing through the air at his absolute top speed. He had been exhausted when he arrived and had never done it in that time since.

He heard it again.

Abandoning his coffee, he set off to investigate this strange new development. It was coming from outside, and he couldn't sense any strange Ki in the vicinity, so he felt fairly confident in his ability to take on whatever was out there. It was probably just a sea creature that had managed to beach itself on the sand.

The front door to the house was wide open, as it always was. Unless a storm was coming, there was no reason to close it. Krillin stepped out onto the small porch, his eyes slowly scanning the pristine beach in front of him. Nothing appeared to be out of place.

He was about to head down the steps and walk a lap around house, when he saw something from the corner of his eye.

It was a cardboard box, on the porch. It had been placed just to the side of the door, out of the path of the strong tropical winds that often blew across the island. He knew with certainty that it hadn't been there the night before. The sound must have come from inside of it.

Suddenly, Krillin felt nervous, this was a bizarre situation. Someone must of purposely come here and left this. Who would do that? Squatting down to rest on his ankles, he cautiously lifted the lid, took one brief look inside and slammed it back down again. Stumbling backwards, he screamed and fell onto his backside, where he quickly began to hyperventilate.

It took half a second for the small man to compose himself, but when he did he quickly jumped up and ran down onto the beach. Fear pounded through his entire body, he could hardly breath as he felt his heart racing – pounding in his chest with an intensity he had never felt before.

Was this some kind of a sick joke?

Quickly, he looked up and down the beach, there was no sign of anyone though, and so he blasted up from the sand and shot himself high into the sky to get a better view of the entire island.

"18!" he bellowed, as loud as his lungs would allow him, his cry echoed far and wide, the panic in his voice plain for all to hear "18, where are you?!". His eyes darted all over, searching desperately for any sign of her, for even the smallest flicker of movement. There was none.

"Fuck!" the profanity echoed all around him.

Not quite sure if this was really happening, or if he was having some kind of bizarre nightmare, Krillin dropped back onto the sand. Wiping away frightened tears with the back of his hand as he went, he ran back up the beach and jumped onto the porch in one big leap. Hoping that he had dreamt this whole thing, he ripped the lid off the box and tossed in aside, praying to whoever would be willing to listen that it would be empty this time.

He gazed down at the tiny infant inside the box, who couldn't have been any more than a few hours old, and felt a fresh wave of terror wash over him. His stomach churned and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. The baby was still covered in drying blood and mucous, the umbilical cord had been crudely severed and tied in a hasty knot.

Gently, so as not to drop it with his trembling hands, Krillin picked up the entire box and headed into the house. Someone had hastily wrapped a towel around the newborn and he gingerly pulled it back to check that it was okay.

It was a little baby girl.

Was it his girl? Was this his daughter?

Utterly unable to sit still for even a moment, he jumped up from the couch and began to pace the length of the living room. "Shit!" he yelled, thumping himself in the side of the head with the palm of his hand.

"Aaaaaaargh!" Unable to think straight, his brain finally exploded and in sheer frustration, he swung his fist at the wall, embedding it deep within the plaster. When the baby started to cry, so did he. He extracted his fist and forearm from the wall, sunk to the ground, buried his head in his hand and sobbed.

Krillin allowed himself 10 minutes to panic. A useful trick that he had picked up sometime during his lowest points of the last 24 months. He stalked around the house, pulling at his hair. He stomped, kicked, swore, cried and punched. Finally, he rounded out his allocated 10 minutes by vomiting.

After splashing some cool water on his face and brushing his teeth, he stared at his reflection in the mirror. He looked ragged. His eyes were red from tears and they still now, glittered with fear. His skin was in parts red and blotchy and in others as pale as a ghost.

Half an hour ago, Krillin had been asleep. He had never imagined a life could change so much in half an hour.

"Right," he spoke, trying to fill his voice with confidence and determination, thinking that if he could convince the man in the mirror that he had everything under control, perhaps he would be able to convince himself too. "I need a plan."

Immediately, he ruled out asking the others for help. Aside from the fact that he had basically spent the last two years of his life purposefully avoiding them – save a few very brief phone calls with Chi-Chi and Gohan, he really didn't want to have to explain this mess to anyone, when he hardly even understood it himself.

He was thankful that his master wasn't here. As wise as the old man was, Krillin knew that he would not have kind things to say about this.

Quickly, he pulled on some clean clothes and picked up his wallet from his nightstand before hurrying back down stairs. On his way out the door, he stopped and to look down at the tiny girl, still laying peacefully in the box. She was asleep.

"Good." Krillin breathed a small sigh of relief. He would figure out what he was going to do about this in the broader sense later. Right now though, he needed supplies. Formula, diapers and the biggest bottle of scotch he could get his hands on.

With that, he ran down onto to the beach and blasted off in the direction of the nearest mainland. The baby was just going to have to fend for herself for a few hours.

* * *

18 sat on her knees, on the floor in the bathroom of the small cabin she had come to call her home. She lent forward, tipping herself over until her forehead was resting on the cool tile floor. A sob escaped her lips, coming from some place so deep within her that she was utterly unable to control it. A sob a heart wrenching and real that she had no choice but to succumb to it. More followed. Her whole body shook with emotions as she wailed inconsolably, never had she experienced anything like this. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks and mingled with the blood all over the floor.

Slowly, so as not to bring on another bout of lightheadedness, 18 sat up. Her eyes moved slowly around the room, trying to maintain focus while she surveyed the carnage. There wasn't a surface in sight that wasn't covered in sticky, slowly drying blood. It was everywhere, and it wasn't over yet. Looking down, 18 was powerless to stop the pool that was growing underneath her. Blood was still flowing from her body, it ran down her bare thighs to the floor in an endless stream. It was smeared up her arms, on her face, in her hair, even under her fingernails.

This was too much for her to process. Another sob rose up from within her and fresh tears began to fall, stinging her eyes. She was terrified in a way she had never been before – she felt betrayed by her inhumanity.

She let herself cry for a few more minutes, if for no other reason than she had no idea what she was supposed to do when she stopped

Eventually, after what felt like hours, or even days, but was really only minutes, 18 managed to compose herself enough to crawl across the floor and into the shower cubical. There, she sat under the spray, staring blankly ahead at nothing in particular. The water ran red as the blood rinsed from her body, but she knew she would never feel truly clean again.

Soon, the stream only ran lukewarm, then cool and then finally icy cold, yet 18 continued to sit. She knew she couldn't stay here forever, bleeding, naked and cold, but she was too scared to move. She was in no way ready to face the reality of what her body had just been through, of what waited for her in the next room.

A piercing cry sliced through the quiet night, jolting 18 violently back to reality. She reached up to turn the water off and pulled her wary body up to a standing position. Wrapping around herself the least blood stained towel she could find, she took a deep breath and opened the door.

The crying was louder now, it was ragged and demanded attention. 18 tried her best to ignore it while she slowly dressed herself in clean clothes, but it grew more and more ferocious with every minute that passed and she was quickly left with no choice but to confront the situation.

Almost the moment she picked the newborn up off the bed, the crying ceased and 18 breathed a sigh of relief. She gazed down at the infant and felt… nothing. Not a single thing. She felt not a single connection to this child she had birthed only an hour before.

How had this happened? This was something that even in the furthest reaches of her imagination, she had never dreamed would be possible.

It was kind of ironic really, she thought to herself. She had near encyclopedic knowledge of every aspect of humanity. Math, history, science, even medicine, she knew it all. Yet for all the theoretical knowledge she possessed, she had been utterly unable to apply it to the real world – to herself. She had been pregnant – had carried life inside of her, and the entire time, she had had no idea. She had not had any sickness, no tiredness, her belly had not swollen, and there had been no movements. Even once she had started to labour, she had failed to make the connection. Her first thoughts, when she had started to feel the pains low in her abdomen, was that one of her cybernetic enhancements must have been malfunctioning.

'Good.' She had thought. Perhaps it would explode inside of her and bring her the sweet release of death she so desperately craved. Perhaps she would finally be reunited with her brother.

Of course though, it hadn't been her mechanical side breaking down, it had been her human side functioning exactly as it was supposed to. It had gotten worse and worse as the night wore on, and yet still, even then, as she writhed around on her bed in sheer agony, it still had not dawned on her – that's how impossible a scenario it had seemed.

It was not until the very final moments, until she was feeling the uncontrollable urge to bare down; to push, that she managed to connect the dots. Fear flooded her system as she tried desperately to fight against her body. She screamed – from terror more than pain, as she realized there was no stopping what was about to happen..

She felt the baby slide out of her, releasing a massive pressure in her pelvis that she hadn't even been aware of. Looking down at the infant, 18 didn't feel any feelings of motherly tenderness or love. All she felt was pure panic.

The baby was still connected to her, via the umbilical cord. Had she of been thinking straight – which she wasn't, 18 would of known that if she had of just waited a few minutes, the placenta to which that umbilical cord was still attached, would of expelled itself from her body naturally.

But she wasn't thinking straight, logic and reason had checked out long ago. There was not a speck of rationality in her mind, she was in the middle of a panic attack and operating off of pure fear. There was only one though; it overrode all others.

18 did not want to be attached to this baby. She didn't want to be anywhere near it. And so without another thought, she grabbed hold of the cord and gave it a hard tug.

Instantly, it was a decision she regretted.

A pain unlike anything she had felt before tore through her. She gagged and doubled over on the bed – her abdomen felt as though it were on fire, she dry heaved as her body tried to vomit, but there was nothing in her stomach to bring up, she could taste the bile in the back of her throat.

It worked though, because a moment later, with a shuddering groan, she had passed the placenta.

That was when the bleeding had begun. It happened instantly, like a dam wall had burst. She was hemorrhaging, badly. Quickly, 18 dived off the bed, and into the small adjoining bathroom, slamming the door behind her, abandoning the child she had just birthed. She hadn't even bothered to check what sex it was.

The world around her blacked in and out of focus, as 18 teetered on the edge of passing out. The blood continued to flow with an intensity unlike anything she had ever seen before.

She felt the tears stinging at the corners of her eyes and instantly succumbed to them, and she began to sob.

18 blinked slowly as the world around her came back into focus. She was having trouble holding onto a train of thought, her body felt almost too heavy to support itself, she had lost a lot of blood.

She gazed down at the baby she was still awkwardly holding in her arms and noted absentmindedly, that it was a girl.

A girl that soon began to whimper in her arms. Terrified that she would start crying again, 18 placed her down on the bed and went to fetch a pair of scissors. They were blunt and it took a few tries, but eventually 18 managed to hack her way through the umbilical cord, detaching the newborn from the placenta.

This baby needed to go. 18 needed time to gather her thoughts, to process the way in which her entire life had just changed. She was hardly fit to even look after herself at the moment, her life was far from ideal, no child deserved to be raised by her. There was only one place her weary brain could think to take the infant. 18 hoped her tired body would be able to make the trip.

She moved quickly, swaddling the newborn in a towel and gently lowering her into a cardboard box – it wasn't ideal, but it was all she could find. With that, she headed outside and took to the sky, setting out on the longest journey to Kame Island she would ever make.

* * *

A/N: So there we have it! I do realize that this chapter was very monolougy, but both of our characters were off doing their own things. They will come together in the next chapter though!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that it is something new and different for you to read – I try very hard to keep all my work as unique and interesting as I am able to!

I would love to know what you thought, good bad or otherwise, but until then, much love and I'll see you in the next chapter!

-D.B.


	3. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Dragonball franchise. This is just a work of my imagination.

A/N: Welcome everyone to chapter two of my little story. Thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed and enjoyed the journey so far. I hope you like this next instalment just as much. I'm really happy with how it came out! There are a few (not many) swear words towards the end, so don't say I didn't warn you!

-D.B 

**Unbroken**

 **Chapter Two**

Screaming. All he could hear was screaming. Everything echoed out here, bouncing off the vast nothingness that surrounded them.

Krillin hovered in the air, high above his once peaceful island home, trying his best to psyche himself up enough to head inside.

It wasn't working.

He swallowed nervously, gripped his shopping bags a little tighter and dropped out of the sky.

Walking into the house, he felt his heart instantly break for the tiny girl. What a terrible start to life she had had, abandoned by not only one, but both of the people who were meant to be loving and caring for her.

As if Krillin didn't already hate himself enough. This new guilt was the last thing he needed.

He figured that the thing the little girl needed most right now was food. Heading into the kitchen he pulled a tin of baby formula and some bottles from his grocery bags and set to work, following the directions on the tin with extreme precision.

The crying ceased the moment he held the bottle to the hungry baby's lips. She sucked relentlessly at the plastic teat, and Krillin mentally patted himself on the back for getting this one right.

This was his first opportunity to really, properly look the baby over. Krillin had already figured out what was going on here, who had dumped this innocent child on his doorstep, but sitting here now, staring down at her, there was really no denying it.

Her lack of a nose suggested that this was indeed his daughter in his arms, a thought so foreign to him it made him queasy. And the tuft of blonde hair atop her head, gave him a fairly solid indication of who her mother was.

He couldn't believe how tiny she was, she fit almost perfectly in the crook of his arm. Were all new babies this size, he wondered? This was his first ever encounter with a newborn.

She hadn't been washed yet, and was still covered only with the towel 18 must of wrapped her in, he noted with some sadness.

How had this happened? Well, obviously, he knew how this had happened, but, he wondered, as he rested his head back against the couch and closed his eyes, how had it happened with 18?

Casting his mind back, he tried to remember all the times 18 had come to the island over the last few months, but his mind was hazy. He had spent much of the last few years wallowing so deeply in his own grief and self-loathing that he hadn't bothered to pay much attention to anyone else.

That included 18. She stirred up way to much emotional baggage inside his poor, tormented soul. His emotions were so torn whenever he was around her. Honor Goku and shut her out, be cold and calloused towards her? Or finally take note of his masters near constant insistence that Goku would not want him to be miserable and let her in? He knew what he wanted to do, but his undying loyalty to Goku always won out. As a result, their interactions with each other were often laced with sarcasm and aggression, they would be downright mean to each other, until their words and actions would cut so deep, that eventually one of them would break. That was when they slept together. It was never soft or romantic, it was always desperate and bitter and angry, but it gave them the physically contact and emotional release they both so desperately craved. And then the cycle would repeat.

In the beginning, when he had first met her on the highway, he had developed a bit of a schoolboy crush on her, she was, without question, undeniably beautiful. Even now, Krillin would be lying to himself if he said he thought otherwise.

That had been her greatest weapon against him all along. Her beauty had entranced him, had him imagining a life where he would be able to gaze into her stunning crystal blue eyes every day, to kiss her perfectly soft, pink lips anytime he wanted.

And then Bulma had placed that deactivation switch into his hands. His! Krillin! What was she thinking?! He mentally chided Bulma for not knowing him better than that after so many years.

If only he had pressed that button, they would all be living in a very different world right now. A world where Goku was alive and everyone was happy. Where he was happy.

Goku was the only person in the world who had never betrayed him, who had always been there for him. And yet, that hadn't stopped Krillin from betraying him, without hesitation, the day he smashed that remote. He knew all too well what the consequences of his actions would be that day, and still, he had done it. All for a stupid crush.

The chain reaction of events that he had begun that day, ended with the death of the greatest hero the universe would ever know.

He killed Goku.

After that, his attitude towards 18 changed completely. Gone were the feelings of puppy love he once felt when he thought about the pretty blonde. Instead they were replaced by crippling feelings of blame and regret.

Feeling anything else towards her would have only been an even further betrayal of Goku.

He didn't remember the first time she had come to the island, one day she was just there. He made no attempt to engage her in conversation, nor she him and that had suited them both just fine.

She kept showing up at his home, and eventually, they came to share a few words here and there, which eventually developed into conversations, arguments and then sex. It had happened about a dozen times over the course of the next few months, always initiated by 18, but never stopped by Krillin. They were using each other as temporary reprieves from their miserable, confusing existences, distracting themselves from their loneliness and their real problems. This was something that they were both all too aware of, but neither of them had the emotional strength to do anything about.

Except now they had gone and created a real problem. One they couldn't just pretend to ignore until it got to painful, and then band-aid it with sex. A problem that was currently sleeping in Krillins arms.

Rubbing his hands over his weary face, Krillin groaned. This was not how he had expected this day to unfold when he had woken up this morning.

He needed a plan.

* * *

Groggily, 18 slowly became aware of her existence. How long had she been asleep for? Minutes? Hours? Days? Well however long it had been, it hadn't been long enough. She felt like shit.

Using the sunlight that was pouring through the window as a guide, she was able to tell that it was late in the afternoon. 5 o'clock maybe? When she had crawled into bed it had been around noon, and she knew by the stale taste in her mouth and the crick in her neck that more than a few hours had passed. She must have been sleeping for more than an entire day.

Rubbing at her eyes to dislodge the sleep from them, 18 began to sit up, but she was immediately overcome by a wave of dizziness so intense that she had no choice but to lie back down.

"Aaaaargh!" Her frustrated cry filled the room. She was so angry with her body. How dare it be acting so human.

How she had made it all the way back to the small cabin, she would never know. It was half a world away from the island, and she had been in no condition to travel anywhere, let alone there and back. Even now, two days later she was struggling just to sit upright.

Begrudgingly, she swung her legs off the bed and cautiously stood up, not quite yet trusting her ability to bare weight. It was only a few short steps to the full length mirror which hung on the back of the bedroom door.

She gazed, bleary eyed, at her reflection, the girl who stared back at her was not a pretty sight. Her eyes, usually a piercing blue, were grey and dull, and rimmed with dark circles and puffy bags. Her skin was dry and flaky and her greasy hair hung limp around her face, little flecks of blood still clinging to it.

She peeled off her dirty tee-shirt and tossed it carelessly aside. Now clad only in her underwear, she observed her body, scrutinizing over every horrid inch of disfigured flesh. Her eyes drifted, as they always did, to the long dark scar that ran directly down the center of her torso. It began between her breasts and ran down through her naval, finishing just above her pubic bone. She reached out and gingerly ran her fingers down it. Shuddering as she did. It reminded her of an autopsy incision, which, she supposed, it kind of was. Whoever she used to be had died the day Gero had taken that scalpel to her.

Today though, she had something new to hate about her body. As she looked herself over, she realized that there was virtually no evidence of what her body had just been though. She looked the same as she always had. Her stomach was just as flat, her strong abdominal muscles as prominent as they ever had been, her skin as taught and toned as always. If she hadn't of experienced it personally, she wouldn't of believed it had happened. Had it even happened? It was all starting to feel like some kind of hyper realistic dream. Surely her body wasn't capable of something as human as creating life.

For reasons that were far beyond her ability to comprehend, tears began to form at the corners of her eyes. It was too much. She didn't know it, but her body was being completely flooded with hormones, they were designed to help her bond with her newborn, but instead they were just wreaking havoc on her emotions.

She had experienced something life changing, endured a trauma, right here on her bathroom floor, all by herself, and she had nothing to prove that it had ever happened. No marks, no scars, no baby. Nothing to prove that she still did hold onto a shred of humanity, only a big ugly scar to show how much of it she had lost.

Unable to stand the sight of her deformed body for even a second longer, 18 turned away from the mirror and, with a long exhausted sigh, crawled back under the covers of her bed. She wasn't quite ready to face the world just yet.

* * *

Krillin was about to snap. He could feel himself tiptoeing ever closer to the edge. It was the middle of the night, he was tired and this child just did not stop crying. Ever! Everything he knew to try had failed. Food? No. Diaper? No. Bath? No. Too hot? No. Too cold? No.

"Go to sleep" he desperately pleaded as he paced up and down the second story landing, gently bouncing the baby in his arms, "please." How did Bulma and Chichi make this seem so easy?

He had contemplated calling one of the aforementioned women in one of his more delusional moments, but some small part of his brain that was still holding onto a shred of sanity had held him back.

Bulma, while one of his oldest friends, was a know-it-all busybody, who just had to make sure that everyone knew her opinion about everything. He did not need to be on the receiving end of one of her inquisitions right now – he really didn't feel like picking apart every minute detail of how he had gotten himself into this situation just yet.

And Chichi – well she couldn't have been any more different from her kind and caring husband if she tried. She was judgmental to the extreme. Hyper critical of anyone who dared do anything in even a slightly different way to her, and not at all shy about letting people know it. Add that to the fact that Chichi would certainly take issue with the fact that he had had an accidental baby with the woman who was created for the sole purpose of killing her husband, and Krillin was pretty sure she was not the right person to be seeking advice from.

Finally, the combination of rocking and begging paid off as the tiny girl drifted off in his arms. He did a few more laps of the hall to be sure, before he gently set her down in the middle of his bed and left her to sleep.

Then he headed downstairs. He didn't care that it was nearing three in the morning, the last 72 hours had all blurred together anyway – he needed a drink.

He poured himself a very generous glass of scotch and made his way outside and onto the beach. The air was muggy and the sand still felt warm between his toes. He walked down the beach and into the surf, just deep enough so that his shorts didn't get wet. The cool water felt refreshing against his bare skin and he considered diving the whole way in, but he didn't want the creaking pipes from the shower he would need to take afterwards to rewake the baby.

He took a long sip from his drink instead, soaking in the rare moment of stillness.

"Krillin." The sound of the voice behind him made him jump, and he was thankful he had his back turned to her, allowing him to hide his startled expression. He knew he was only going to get one shot at this conversation. He needed to keep his cool.

"I wondered if you were ever going to show your face around here again." He waded out of the shallows and walked right past her, expecting her to follow.

She didn't, she just stood, glued to her spot. "Stop!" she called after him.

Halting, Krillin turned back to face her, he watched her expectantly, waiting for her to say something. "What?" he eventually asked when it became apparent she wasn't going to speak.

The frustration in his voice was thick, and a pang of guilt surged through the pretty blonde. She had not thought of Krillin once before leaving the baby here, or after really. She had been so stuck on her own emotional rollercoaster ride that she hadn't even been able to think of him.

Growing tired of waiting for a response that clearly wasn't going to come, Krillin turned on his heel and stomped off up the beach. "Wait there," he called over his shoulder as he went, "You need a drink!"

He was right, she did need a drink. He had returned a few moment later clutching a second glass and the scotch bottle. They were now sitting under a palm tree on the grassy side of the island staring each other down, neither of them wanting to be the one to break the silence first.

"So?" Krillin eventually asked, as he drained his glass and topped them both up again.

18 eyed him suspiciously, surprised by his ability to put away his liquor, "so what?"

Krillin narrowed his eyes dangerously at her. He was exhausted, overwhelmed and a little bit drunk, and in no mood for her games. "What the fuck happened here?!" he demanded angrily, "Why the hell did you think it was ok to not bother telling me I was going to be a father?!"

"I didn't know!" 18 exploded, suddenly equally as angry, and not appreciating the accusations Krillin was throwing around.

"Didn't know if she was mine?! How the hell do you know now then?!" he knew without a doubt that the baby girl sleeping upstairs was his daughter, but that was so far from the point right now that he didn't even care.

"Not that you fool, of course she is yours!" 18 shook her head at him like he was some kind of moron. Who else would she have possibly slept with? "I didn't tell you because I had no idea I was even pregnant until she was practically out of me!" her voice grew louder and louder as she ranted at him. Who did he think he was anyway, giving her that kind of attitude? She made a mental note to herself to revisit that little outburst later.

"Krillin wasn't quite sure he believed what he was hearing "How is that even possible?" he asked as his rubbed at his tired face, his voice thick with frustration.

"What was the last time you saw me?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" 18 only glared at him, waiting for an answer to her question. "I don't know," he eventually mumbled "Five? Six week ago?"

"And did I look heavily pregnant to you?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

Realizing there was no answer he could give that wouldn't make him sound like a total jerk, he instead let out a small, defeated laugh, shook his head and drained his glass.

"Besides, I don't recall you ever taking any preventative action to stop something like this from happening. So either you didn't care if it did, or, and I'm guessing this is the more likely option, you didn't think that it could."

Krillins shoulders slumped as he gazed out into the endless black ocean. She was right, of course, he was just as responsible for this mess as she was. They had both made mistakes and now they were paying the price.

"You need to take her back," he eventually muttered, "I can't do this."

18's eyes widened, the look of shock on her face poorly hidden. "I can't take her back!" she retorted, though she didn't really know what else she had expected him to say.

Frustration finally got the better of Krillin, he leapt up off the grass, and with an angry growl, he kicked a nearby rock as hard as he could, hurtling it far out to sea. "Then why are you here?" he demanded, without turning to face her.

18 buried her face in her hands, trying to hide herself from Krillin as she struggled with all of these strange new emotions. Why was she here? She wasn't even sure herself, really. All she knew was that the more time that passed, the more she believed she really had just dreamt up the whole thing. She guessed that she had come here seeking proof.

"Is she ok?" she asked, not really answering Krillins question.

He turned to face her before he responded. He couldn't help but notice as she sat cross legged on the grass, just how tired she looked, how vulnerable. She must have known how he was going to react before she came here, she could of easily just never returned to the island, but here she was. He suddenly felt sorry for her, she had obviously had a rough couple of days too. "She's fine" he replied softly, "Sleeping on my bed."

"How did Roshi react?" half a smile tinged 18's features as she imagined the serving Krillin would of copped from the old martial arts master.

Krillin actually laughed. Sarcastically, but it was a laugh none the less. It had been so long since he had heard such a sound come from his own body that it sounded almost alien to him. "He's not here. He took off with Oolong to visit an old friend last week. I don't imagine they would be thrilled by the situation though…" he trailed off, realizing that may have sounded harsher than he had had intended it too.

"Why are you here, 18?" Krillin asked again, though the anger in his voice was gone this time, replaced by sheer exhaustion. The sedative effects of the scotch were starting to kick in.

"I…" she hesitated, not exactly keen on the idea of showing Krillin how truly vulnerable she was right now "I just needed to know that I didn't make the whole thing up."

He blinked, a little bit angered by her response, none of this had felt made up to him, that was for sure. He didn't let it show though. "Come inside?" he offered instead.

Without saying anything, she stood up, and followed Krillin, who was already halfway back to the little home.

"Sit." He offered motioning to the worn old couch in the center of the room. She did, and instantly sunk into its plush softness, she closed her eyes. "You didn't make it up" Krillins voice suddenly brought her back from the brink of sleep. His sounded so serious.

"Hmm…" 18 let her eyes drift closed again, she was so tired, and this couch was so soft.

Krillin stood with one foot on the staircase that lead to the second floor, watching 18 with cautious curiosity. He didn't know what to do. Did she want to see her daughter or did she want to sleep on his couch? He may have only been doing this parenting thing for 3 days, but already, he knew better than to wake a sleeping baby for no good reason. He loudly cleared his throat, hoping to get 18's attention. It worked, her eyes slowly fluttered back open, and she looked groggily around the room. Had she actually managed to fall asleep in the 5 seconds it had taken him to walk across the small lounge? How tired was she, exactly?

"Should I go and get her?" he asked thoughtfully "cause it was kinda hard to get her to sleep and I'd rather not wake her if I don't have to."

18 swallowed, suddenly nervous, she nodded her head and Krillin disappeared up the stairs. She let her eyes wander around the small room, desperately trying to keep them open. It was the first time she had been inside the house, but it was exactly like she imagined. Photographs covered the walls of the living room she had found herself in, filled with the happy faces of people she recognized from her data files. Goku, Yumcha, Bulma, they were all there. Krillin featured heavily in the pictures, but he looked very different from the Krillin that she knew. He looked so happy and vibrant, like someone who truly knew the joy of simply being alive. That was a far cry from the man she had come to know over the last two years.

She heard a door close upstairs and then the creak of the staircase as Krillins feet and legs came into view. She felt her mouth go dry as he walked towards her, holding the tiny baby in his arms, she couldn't help but notice how naturally he held her, though he probably wouldn't of admitted that was the case.

Gently, he held the baby out to her "You have to make sure to support her neck." He said as he lowered her into 18's arms. Again, she wondered if he realized he was good at this. "Told you it wasn't all a dream." He sat down in an armchair opposite the couch, interested to see how this was going to unfold.

18 cradled the infant close to her, she looked nothing like the slippery, squishy faced blob that she remembered from their first encounter. She was smaller than she remembered, she looked cozy in the little pink jumpsuit that Krillin had dressed her in. There was a little puff of blonde hair atop her soft head, and 18 found herself counting her little fingers and toes, they were all there. She was missing one important feature, she noted, and looked up at Krillin, surprised to find that he was already looking at her.

"You really thought she wasn't yours?" she asked, sarcastically, referring to her lack of nose, and Krillin laughed again, for the second time that night. What was happening to him?

"Not really," he replied, "Poor thing looks like me, hey?"

"I'm sure she'll grow out of it" 18 joked, a devious smile briefly flashed across her face. "Did you name her?"

"Name her?" Krillin sounded taken aback by the suggestion "No. I thought perhaps you might like a little input into your own daughter's name?"

It occurred to 18 only then, that he was probably right. She opened her mouth to respond, but a long yawn escaped her lips instead.

Yawning, it seemed was contagious, because a moment later, it was Krillin yawning and rubbing sleepily at his face. "Look," he began, "clearly we're both exhausted. Nothing good is going to happen while we're feeling like this. The baby's just been sleeping next to me on my bed, why don't you sleep up there with her tonight, and I'll take the couch and we can talk about this in the morning. It'll be light in a few hours."

18 hesitated before replying, "What if she doesn't recognize me when she wakes up?" she asked nervously.

"She's three days old 18, I don't think she recognizes anyone. Besides, it's your voice she's been listening to for the past nine months, not mine" he could sense her uneasiness though, and was too tired to push it any further tonight "But fine. You take the couch. I'll go grab you some bedding."

"Thanks" she replied meekly, already feeling her eyes growing heavy again. She'd deal with all of this in the morning.

* * *

A/N: So there we have it, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the story as a whole so far now that it is starting to come together a little bit more. I'd love to know what you thought of it! Next chapter should be out in a week or so, so keep your eyes peeled for it!

Much love and thank you again for taking the time to read this. It makes me very happy to know that people enjoy what I do!

-D.B


	4. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Dragonball franchise. This is just a work of my imagination.

A/N: Hello again and welcome to chapter three of Unbroken! Not much to say up here this time. This chapter follows on immediately from the end of chapter two and sees our two favorite island dwellers sorting out some of the logistical aspects of their situation. I hope you enjoy it!

-D.B 

**Unbroken**

 **Chapter Three**

To 18, it seemed as if she had only just fallen asleep, when she was up again. Her ears woke up before the rest of her, she could hear someone, or something, bustling around behind her.

Dazed and confused, she sat up, memories of the night before slowing floating back to her. She was on Kame Island, she remembered.

A door creaked open behind her, and quickly, 18 snapped her head around to assess the situation. Krillin stopped dead in his tracks, looking at her wide eyed, like a deer caught in headlights.

"Oh… you're awake" he was holding a cup of coffee in one hand, and a baby bottle in the other. "Good morning. Do you want this?" he offered her the coffee.

"No," she mumbled as she ran her fingers through her knotty bed hair, she had never been much of a morning person. "What time is it?"

"Just after nine," Krillin was about to say something more, but he paused, a thoughtful expression taking over his face. "Wait here," he eventually said instead, placing both the bottle and his mug down on the coffee table, "I'll be right back."

18 watched him disappear up the stairs, dumbfounded. Where exactly did he think she would go?

A moment later he returned. "Here you go" he announced as he lowered the baby into 18's arms and handed her the bottle, "she's hungry." He picked up his coffee and sat down in the armchair, taking a deep sip.

Her eyes darted between the baby and Krillin, what was he doing exactly? "How?" was all she could manage to utter.

"What do you mean how?" Krillin half mumbled to himself as he got up and reached to take the bottle from 18's hand. "Here," he showed her, "It's not hard. All you gotta do is hold it up for her, she'll do the rest."

He sat back down in his chair and watched quietly for a few minutes as 18 fed the hungry girl, slowly sipping his coffee, letting the caffeine pump through his veins. "How did you sleep?"

"I'm not sure I did" 18 didn't look up at him to reply.

"It's not exactly the world's most comfortable couch. Sorry about that"

"The couch was fine."

The bottle was soon empty and 18 pulled it away from the infant's mouth, she whimpered at the movement and 18 felt herself tense up. She didn't know what to do if she cried. "Now you need to burp her" Krillin prompted, "Do you need me to show you how?"

She couldn't help but notice how patient Krillin was being with her, she had had a few glimpses of this softer side of him before, but they had always been so fleeting. This man was so much kinder than the man she knew. She passed the baby over to him, and watched closely as he placed her over his shoulder and gently started to pat her back.

"She needs a name" Krillin said as he kept on patting. "She can't just be called baby forever. Any suggestions?"

18 thought for a moment, wondering how she was supposed to respond "I have no idea," she eventually replied "I only have the names already in my files. I'm guessing Piccolo is not appropriate?" she decided to go with a joke.

The laugh that came from Krillin was the first truly joyous noise he had made in two years. What was 18 doing to him? He wasn't sure that he liked it, whatever it was. "I did have one idea" he mused, once his laughter had subsided. "What do you think of Marron?"

"Marron" 18 repeated the word, testing out the feel of it on her lips. "Marron" she said it a few more times, letting it sink into her brain. "Ok then."

Krillin raised a dubious eyebrow at her, "Not gonna fight for Piccolo?" he asked. 18 only rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Marron it is then!"

Once he had managed to get the newly named Marron to burp, Krillin stood up and handed her back to 18. "I'm gonna go grab a shower," he said. "You'll be right with her for a while?"

"What do I do if she cries?"

"I dunno," Krillin shrugged his shoulders and turned towards the stairs. "Your guess is as good as mine. Just keep trying things until something works. That's what I've been doing."

Before she had a chance to protest, he had disappeared up to the second level of the house. She heard a door shut and a moment later, the creaking of the pipes as the water started to run. She felt uneasy being left alone with Marron, like someone was going to barge through the front door and tell her to step away from the child. But as the seconds stretched out into minutes and that didn't happen, she began to relax.

Standing up from the couch, she turned around and took a proper look at her surroundings. She had been far too tired last night to really bother. She had been coming to the island for a long time, but she had never stepped foot inside its iconic pink house before, she had neither the time, nor the patience for Roshi or the pig, who usually resided here, so she had been relieved when Krillin had mentioned that they weren't home at the moment.

She was in was she could only assume was the main room of the house – a cozy living room with the couch, two arm chairs and a TV. The walls were adorned with photos; and trinkets and knickknacks filled the shelves and bookcases. She couldn't help but feel that every item in this room had a story behind it. On the wall opposite the front door was a swing door which she guessed lead into the kitchen, and the stairs which would take her up to the second level of the house. It was only small, but she could tell it was a happy home.

Taking a step closer to the wall, she focused her attention on one photo in particular. Instantly, the sensors in her brain kicked into overdrive. 'Goku!' they were screaming at her. 'Target acquired, commence termination!' She was indeed face-to-face with the legendary Sayian, but it was a much younger version than she was accustomed too.

Here he was only a teenager, thirteen maybe? It was a photo taken here on the island, out on the beach. He had his arm thrown around an equally young Krillins' shoulders and he was reciprocating the gesture, they were more or less the same height. Both of the boys were holding up a fish in their spare hands, their faces were plastered with grins that stretched from ear to ear. Everything about the image radiated pure joy.

'Commence termination! Commence termination! Commence termination!'

"Aaaaargh!" 18 cried out in frustration as she closed her eyes and turned her back to the wall. She looked down at Marron who she had been rocking in one arm this whole time, and suddenly felt disgusted with herself. What was she doing here? Who was she kidding, thinking she might be able to pretend that there was still something about her that was human? She was a monster. An abomination. She had been altered by a madman; programmed to kill, and she was not capable of overcoming that, no matter how desperately she wanted to.

She couldn't breathe, it felt like the walls of Kame House were closing in around her, she had to get out. Right now. Before she was crushed. Carefully, she placed Marron down on the couch and then disappeared out the front door.

* * *

"18?" Krillin was rubbing a towel over his shaggy black hair as he came down the stairs, muffling his voice. "18?" he called again, thinking maybe she hadn't heard him. He stepped off the stairs, hanging the damp towel over the railing, and did a quick sweep of the room. Marron was on the couch, sound asleep, but 18 was nowhere to be seen.

His pulse started to quicken as he popped his head into the kitchen. Empty. He started to panic, please don't say she had run off for a second time. He ran out onto the beach, and was about to call out for her again, when he spotted her, perched high up on the roof of the house. Relief flooded his system and he let out a long breath he hadn't even realized he had been holding in.

18 quickly wiped away any stray tears with the sleeve of her shirt as she watched Krillin lift up off the ground and sit himself down next to her on the roof. "I thought you'd done a runner" he offered her an explanation for his outburst, "Are you okay?"

She took a few long, deep breaths before she replied, trying to make sure all traces of panic were gone from her voice before she spoke. "I'm fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I'm fine." 18 reiterated a little more firmly this time, though she knew Krillin was going to press her for more of an explanation than that. "This whole thing is just a little overwhelming," she told a half truth. She was well aware of Krillins guilt over Goku's death and how she factored into that. Something told her that telling him she had just experienced orders to kill a picture of his late friend was not going to do her any favors right now.

"You're telling me." Krillin replied, his eyes following an oil tanker slowly across the distant horizon. "I half keep expecting to wake up and find this was all some insane dream."

"Hmmm…" 18 pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. "I came here because I wasn't sure if I dreamt the whole thing up or not when I was at home."

Krillin blinked, he had never heard 18 mention her home before, logically, he knew that she must of lived somewhere, but he'd always pictured her as some kind of nomad, roaming the Earth, doing what she pleased. "Where is home for you?" he asked.

"I don't even know anymore" 18 replied vaguely.

Krillin raised an eyebrow and turned to face 18. "What does that mean?"

"Exactly what I just said." She shot him an angry glare. Krillin winced under her gaze, an almost pained expression coming to his face. "Sorry," she felt bad for snapping at him like that. "Like I said last night, I was _very_ ," she emphasized the word "unprepared to give birth. And it didn't exactly go smoothly either. Things got….. messy."

"Messy?"

18 crossed her arms on top of her knees and rested her head on her forearms, hiding her face from Krillins view. She sighed deeply. She knew she was going to have to tell him the whole story eventually, but she wasn't sure if she was ready to relive it just it. She could feel him staring at her though. He was stubborn, just like she was, and he wasn't going to just let her drop it, she knew that.

"Ok" she lifted her head again and raked her hands back through her hair. "I'm only going to say this once. So listen up," she ordered.

Krillin nodded dumbly.

"I was telling you the truth when I said I didn't know I was pregnant. The thought never even crossed my mind. When I first started to go in into labour, do you know what I thought?"

"What?"

"I thought one of my internal enhancements was malfunctioning," she laughed humorlessly. "I thought I was going to explode. That I might finally be reunited with 17. I realized what was happening maybe 5 minutes before it was all over, and I panicked…" 18 trailed off for a moment as she felt the pain of that night all over again.

"After she was out, I just…. snapped. Had a full blown panic attack or something, because instead of waiting to pass the placenta, which would have been the sane thing to do, I just… ripped it right out of me."

Krillin wasn't entirely sure what a placenta was and he was nowhere near brave enough to ask. He'd just look it up online later.

"And that was when the trouble really started. I hemorrhaged, and it was not pretty. I lost so much blood, it just kept coming and coming. It was worse than any battle I've ever seen. If I wasn't thinking straight before that, then I sure as hell wasn't after. It took hours for it to stop, I don't really remember any of it. I was barely conscious. I guess at some point I brought her here, I don't know how I made it here and back, but I must have managed it somehow, because when I eventually woke up again, I was in my own bed and there was no baby. That's why I needed to know if it really happened or not. It's all so…. hazy."

Krillin wanted to say something, but anything he could think of just seemed trite and clichéd. He knew 18 well enough to know not to bother with meaningless, false sympathy, and so he kept his mouth shut, figuring the best thing he could do for her right now, was to just listen.

"Anyway," 18 sighed "That place is ruined for me now. Too many bad memories, I can't go back. Plus I'll never be able to clean out all the blood."

"You could stay here," the words tumbled out of Krillins mouth before his brain had a chance to process them.

"Huh?" 18 looked at him with wide eyes.

'Oh well' Krillin thought to himself, he'd said it now, he may as well commit to it and see what happened. "Well, we have a spare room that no one is using. Plus it makes sense I guess. I mean, until we figure out some sort of arrangement with Marron. We may as well get the hang of this parenting thing together for a week or two."

18 mulled Krillins proposition over in her mind. He was right, it did seem logical. They had to sort out this situation like adults at some point. Plus she knew there was no way she would be able to do this without Krillins help, she needed him as close as possible, at least for the time being. "Alright" she agreed.

Krillin blinked, "alright?"

"Alright," 18 nodded her head and gazed out to sea. "I sure as hell don't have a better idea right now."

The pair settled into a comfortable silence, like they had so many times before. Sitting here on the roof, watching the clouds float lazily above was a scene that was so familiar to both of them, yet today, everything was different.

Krillins thoughts began to drift. He really wasn't sure what to make of this whole situation. He felt like things should feel a lot more awkward between the pair than they did. This wasn't exactly an everyday situation, but then again, he reasoned, they weren't exactly everyday people. They had come into each other's lives under circumstances that no one else in the world would even believe, let alone be able to comprehend. Their lives were unique, so it made sense that the relationship they had forged from that initial meeting was too.

For the last two years, 18 had been almost his only companion, Roshi and Oolong notwithstanding. She had appeared on the island when he had been at his absolute lowest point, and then he had managed to drag her down to his level by taunting her with the death of her brother. He had gotten some sort of sick pleasure from seeing someone else hurting as much as he was, which was why he kept picking at the wound he had given her. Hurting her made him feel better about his own miserable existence, even if only for a moment.

Why she had kept on returning to his little island in those early days was a mystery that would never have an answer, he wasn't stupid enough to go and bring those memories back to the front of her mind. At a time when he had shut all of his friends, the only people who cared about him, out of his life, she was there, and he had let her in because, well, because they weren't friends. He didn't care about her thoughts or feelings, and so she had inadvertently become the one he took out all his pain and frustration on. It had been easy too, since every time he saw her, all he was reminded of was how much she had cost him.

He had come a long way since those dark days and Krillin never wanted to be in a place that black ever again. Grief had owned his entire being, and it was relentless in its desire to control him. It had taken an eternity to overcome, to get to the point where he was now, where it no longer consumed him. He had bargained with his subconscious, done some sort of an emotional trade, exchanging the initial misery he had experienced over the loss of his best friend for lifelong guilt instead. Now he lived in some sort of a pathetic harmony with guilt and grief that meant most days he was able to function like a normal human being. Not every day of course, he still broke down every now and then, but most days.

She wasn't without blame in this dysfunctional relationship either though, she treated him just as badly as he treated her. The pain of losing her brother ran deep, to her very core and it was never going to go away. Krillin knew that he was an easy target to vent those emotions too. She scolded him for wishing away the bomb inside of her constantly, as if it were the worst possible thing he could have ever done to her. Her only chance of being reunited with 17, gone, because of him. What right did he have to go around making decisions like that about her body? He didn't even know her. He could recite her arguments word for word by now, he had heard them so many times.

Occasionally, they would manage a few minutes of civil conversation, but it never lasted long before the normality of the moment would start to make them uneasy. Then one of them would purposefully lash out and strike a nerve and it would all descend into chaos once more. They felt most comfortable when they were angry with one and other. It always ended the same after that. Once they had ripped each other apart emotionally, physically, sexually, she would blast off into the sky so fast that he would have no chance of catching her, and he would stomp around the island, livid, sometimes for days, ranting about how awful she was, but secretly watching the skies waiting for her to come back so he wouldn't feel quite so alone.

Now though, he was suddenly confronted by the realization that their strange little codependence on each other was going to have to change. No longer could they just be each other's emotional punching bags and occasional sexual release. No matter what happened from here on out, they were in this life together. They were parents now, whether they raised their daughter together, separately or not at all, they were always going to be locked together by this experience.

Krillin felt a hot lump form in his throat, which he quickly swallowed down, as the gravity of the situation he was in finally hit him. He was a father and no matter what happened now, that was never going to change. The thought dawned on him with the subtlety of a freight train hitting him at full speed. He had two options now, embrace this new chapter fully or not at all. There was no middle ground. How the hell he was meant to make a choice like that, he had no idea.

He looked across at 18, who looked as equally lost in her thoughts as he had been. The warm breeze blew her hair gently across her face, and it sparkled under the bright sunlight. Krillin was lost in a whole new train of thought then. She was stunning, there was no denying that, and here she was, sitting next to him. And even more than that, she was the mother of his child, his cheeks reddened as his mind drifted further south.

18 could feel him staring at her, "What's wrong with you?" she asked, eyeing him suspiciously. She had to stifle a mean laugh as she watched his cheeks go from pale pink to deep crimson red.

"Nothing!" he exclaimed, and then quickly changed the subject before 18 could interrogate him any further. "If it makes you feel any better, you weren't the only one who had a major freak out that day."

18 was intrigued enough to let the blush go for now, and looked at Krillin curiously, waiting for him to continue speaking. "Poor kid probably heard enough profanity that day to last her the rest of her life," he admitted. "And I'm sure you noticed the fist shaped hole in the wall in the living room? Which reminds me, I need to fix that before Master Roshi gets back…."

Shaking her head, 18 sighed, a shadow of a smile settling on her face. "It doesn't," she reassured him, "but thanks anyway."

* * *

A/N: Well, that does it for chapter three. I would love to know what you thought of the chapter and if you are enjoying the story so far! Lots of people are reading and have even added this to their alerts list, which makes me very happy, and I am truly humbled by your support! But not so many reviews, so I can only assume that everyone is loving it so far and has no constructive feedback to offer me! Seriously though, I would love to know what people are thinking!

Next chapter: The craziness of this whole situation is starting to wear off and routine is setting in. But with routine, old thoughts and doubts start creeping their way back into the minds of Krillin and 18. Will they be able to overcome their pasts or will they succumb to them again?

Find out soon!

Much love, and of course, reviews, favorites or just reading this at all is very much appreciated!

-Deadly Beauty


	5. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Dragonball franchise. This is just a work of my imagination.

A/N: Eeek, this took a little longer to get up that I had hoped! I do apologize for that! I was on night shift for 10 nights, my kids have lots of end-of-year school stuff going on, I got majorly distracted playing Fallout 4, but whatever, it's hear now and I hope you like it!

I struggled a little bit with some mid-story loss of direction, which is another reason this took a while to finish, but I overcame it and I'm pretty happy with how it came out in the end. Hope you all enjoy it too!

-D.B

 **Unbroken**

 **Chapter Four**

"Blegh," 18 scowled, looking down at the mess in front of her, "disgusting." Marron's wailing filled the room, and probably the rest of the house too, getting more and more hysterical with each moment that passed.

"Alright, better get this over with," she relented and began to tackle her first dirty diaper. Until now, she had been able to palm them off onto Krillin. She'd been handing a lot of Marron's care over to him really, as much as she could get away with without him noticing – or at least that he'd pretend not to notice.

He was just so much better at this whole thing than she was. It seemed to come so easily to him. She envied the way he could effortlessly tell the difference between an 'I'm hungry' cry and an 'I'm tired' cry. To 18, it all just sounded like mindless screaming. And it wasn't like she wasn't trying. She was, but it just wasn't happening. She was hardly able to understand her own emotions most of the time, it was well beyond what she was capable of to understand someone else's as well. Instead of things getting easier with each passing day, she was finding the opposite, the more time that passed, the more frustrated and disconnected she felt.

Quickly, she finished changing Marron's diaper and buttoned her back into the onesie she was wearing, hoping that she would be happy now and would go back to sleep until Krillin returned from the mainland. And it worked! For about 5 minutes. 18 had barely made it down the stairs before the screaming started again.

Mumbling an expletive to herself, she turned around and trudged back up the stairs.

"What?!" she demanded, as she scooped the tiny girl up off the bed and into her arms, "Your daddy's not home, so you're just going to have to put up with me," she apologized.

Apparently though, Marron wasn't happy with that answer, because no matter what 18 tried, no matter how she held her, rocked her, soothed her, she just wouldn't settle. She tried in vain for over an hour, but eventually the overwhelming feeling of failure became too much for her and she snapped.

"Fine!" she yelled in frustration, "Fine! I'm not good enough for you, then you're on your own!" Having been rejected by her own daughter was the final straw. 18 was done. Without another word, she placed Marron down on the bed, turned around and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

* * *

"18!" Krillin dropped his grocery bags carelessly onto the sand and ran down the beach towards the water, "18!"

"What?" she snarled without turning to face him.

The tone in her voice brought Krillin to an abrupt stand still. 'Great,' he thought to himself, it looked like this was going to be one of _those_ days. "Marron's crying. Can't you hear her?"

Again, 18 didn't bother turning to face him, she already knew where this was going. "Of course I can hear her. The whole world can probably hear her!"

"Well," Krillin began, trying to control his budding frustration, but already losing the fight, "aren't you going to go to her?"

It didn't matter what she said next, 18 knew that as soon as she opened her mouth, all hell was going to break loose. If a fight broke out between them now, she seriously doubted her ability to hold herself back. And so she did the only thing she could do. Nothing. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was somewhere far away from here.

It was Krillin who caved in first, unable to ignore the desperate cries of his daughter any longer, "Fine!" he burst out, "I'll go!"

Turning away from 18, he followed the sound back up the beach and into the house, where he found Marron laying on 18's bed, her tiny face was bright red from all the screaming, the sight made Krillins blood boil.

"Hey there, firefly," he soothed his little girl as he lifted her up onto his shoulder, "it's alright," he planted a soft kiss on top of her little head, and began to pace up and down the hall, gently rocking her in his arms as he went, an action that had now almost become a ritual between father and daughter. Nearly straight away the distressed screaming settled to a fussy whimper, and not long after that it had stopped all together.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Krillin headed into his bedroom and sat down on his bed, propping himself up against the fluffy pillows. Carefully, he began to check Marron over, she was fine now, it seemed, but how long had 18 left her screaming like that?

A cold shiver ran down his spine as his mind began to mess with him, filling his imagination with all sorts of terrifying scenarios, all of which involved Marron getting killed or maimed in some hideously brutal way, and him unable to do anything about it. It was too much and he had to literally shake his head to snap himself out of the daydream and purge the thoughts from his mind.

Even just the thought of something ever happening to Marron made him feel physically ill. He held her a little tighter against his body, the only place he knew for sure he would be able to protect her from the evils of the world.

She was nine days old now, and Krillin could not believe how fiercely protective of her he had become. It wasn't even love, it was something more primal and raw than that. It was something about the way she looked at him as she woke up from a nap, or the way her whole hand would clutch onto his pinkie finger when he held her. Already, even after only nine days on this Earth, she knew that her father was someone who was going to protect her and keep her safe.

And it was true, more than he had ever been sure of anything in his life, Krillin was sure that there was nothing he wouldn't do to keep his daughter safe. He would move mountains or part seas to keep her out of harm's way, if it came to it, he would give his life to give her the chance to live in a better world than he did.

The intensity of his feelings was both exhilarating and terrifying, and yet still, even among all the chaos of his rapidly changing world, guilt was still finding a way to make sure its voice was the loudest one he heard.

Guilt for enjoying his daughter, when Goku had a son he would never know. Guilt for wanting to protect her when the greatest protector she could have had was dead because of him. The thoughts still plagued him day and night. Every time he felt even the faintest glimmer of happiness, his mind would punish him with thoughts of his wrong doings. Every good thought was instantly met with a bad one. It was exhausting, all-consuming and impossible to ignore.

Sighing, he dropped his gaze down to the soft little bundle sleeping against his chest. How he could have played a role in the creation of something so perfect was utterly beyond him. All he wanted to do now, for the rest of his life, was look after her.

Which reminded him…

* * *

18 hadn't moved from the big rock she had been sitting on, which she had more or less claimed as her own. She winced as she heard the screen door screech on its hinges, dreading the confrontation that she knew was coming her way.

"Hey!" Krillin bellowed as he marched towards her, his anger growing more and more intense with each step he took. "What the hell was that all about? I leave for a few hours and you think you can just abandon your daughter? What the hell is wrong with you? She needed you!"

Something in Krillins rant struck a nerve with 18, and she whipped her head around to glare at him. The fierce look in her eyes instantly knocked him down a peg or two. She wanted to say something that would cut deep into his psyche, something that would make him feel weak and insignificant. She wanted to say something that would make him feel the way she was feeling right now. But the words that were in her brain were not the words that came out of her mouth.

"She doesn't need me," she cried, her words startling both herself and Krillin, "She hates me!"

In an instant Krillins mood changed from furious, to confused and concerned. What on Earth was 18 talking about? "What?" he asked, struggling to get his head around her ridiculous claim.

"I tried, Krillin, I really did. But I just… she wouldn't stop screaming…" she trailed off and their eyes briefly met, "and then BAM! You swoop in and she's out in 5 minutes flat. Nothing I did was going to work when it was only you she wanted." 18's shoulders slumped and her face fell into a sad frown. She felt utterly defeated by the universe today.

"That's not true," Krillin began, after a long moment of contemplating 18's theory. He looked up at her before he continued and offered her a sympathetic smile, "She could probably just sense your nerves."

"She could sense that her mother is a-" She retorted aggressively, but stopped herself just short of finishing her sentence, unable to will the last word over her lips.

Krillin raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "A what?" he asked skeptically, suggesting that he already knew what she was going to say.

"A monster!" she yelled, much louder than she had intended, "A machine, a robot, however you want to put it! She knows I'm not like her."

"Hey," Krillin reached out and gingerly placed a hand on 18's shoulder, but before he could say anything more, she had swatted his hand away. Only she had hit him with much more force than she had intended, and sent him reeling backwards, where he landed on the sand with a dull thud.

"You're not a machine," he finished his sentence, trying to ignore the frustration that was creeping back into his mind.

"You have no idea what I am!" 18 shot back. Who the hell did Krillin think he was? He had no idea what she had been through at the hands of Gero or what he had made her into. How dare he try and undermine the torture she had suffered at his hand. "And don't you dare try and tell me you understand, because you don't!" she spat, "You can't!"

Krillin was almost offended that 18 would even imply such a thing. "I never claimed that I did!" he retorted, annoyed that she would try and play a card that she knew he had no answer for, "I'm just saying that it doesn't matter what you think you are or aren't, when your child needs you, you go to her!"

"Argh!" 18 cried out in frustration as she turned away from Krillin and stood up. She couldn't bear to look at him; with his sad, pathetic face that was making her feel guilty for lashing out at him. She needed to be angry with him, if she wasn't angry, she was going to burst into tears, and she would not do that. Not in front of anyone, especially not Krillin.

Suddenly, she felt like she was suffocating, she needed to get away from this place, to clear her head and sort out her mind, something that was just not possible here with Krillin lurking in every room, judging her. "I need to get out of here!" she exclaimed, already feeling the tears starting to sting at the corners of her eyes.

As soon as Krillins brain had processed her words, he leapt up from his spot on the sand, "Wait, 18! Don't!" he called after her, but it was too late, she was already nothing more than a fading smudge on the horizon.

* * *

"Krillin, we're hooooo-" Master Roshi's words died away in his throat as he stopped abruptly in the doorway.

"Hey, watch where you're-oomph" Oolong, having just walked right into the back of Roshi, was also stunned into silence mid-sentence as he took in the unusual scene in front of him.

Dropping his luggage unceremoniously on the floor, Roshi slowly took off his trademark sunglasses and cleaned them on his shirt – he needed to be sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him.

Nope. In fact, the scene was even clearer now that his glasses were clean!

Krillin was fast asleep on the couch, flat on his back, head drooped to one side. In and of its self not an unusual sight. Lazy afternoon siestas were common out here. No, what had stopped Roshi in his tracks was not the fact that Krillin was sleeping, it was that he was not sleeping alone.

"Is that a…" Oolong stopped and rubbed his eyes in disbelief "Is that a baby?"

Sure enough, right there in front of them, tucked up in a cozy little bundle, a tiny baby was sleeping peacefully on Krillins chest. The pair looked quite content together, Krillin with one hand resting protectively across the infants back to stop it from sliding off of him.

"What is going on here?" Roshi mumbled to himself. Scratching his head as he went, he took a few more steps towards the dozing pair. He hadn't even been gone a month, and Krillin had what? Gone out and adopted a child? He knew his former student was lonely, but this was rather extreme.

"Krillin?" he reached out and gently nudged the sleeping man's shoulder. "Krillin, son, wake up."

Slowly, Krillins heavy eyes fluttered open. He had been having the nicest dream, but it quickly faded away as he woke and his peacefulness was cut short; because the very first thing he saw as his vision came into focus was Master Roshi's gigantic head right in his face.

"Aaaaah!" he jumped about a foot off the couch, clearly startled by the unexpected wakeup call. Instinctively, his hand tightened around Marron to stop her from falling from his chest. She stirred briefly at her father's sudden movement, but kept on sleeping.

Roshi, clearly amused by Krillins fright, threw his head back and cackled boisterously, he had always been unable to resist a good prank.

"Ugh…" Krillin rubbed his face with his free hand and groaned. He was exhausted. "Welcome home Master. Oolong." Both the aforementioned men watched quietly as Krillin sat up and repositioned the little girl in his arms.

"Soooo," Oolong began, "What have you been up to while we've been gone?" His tone of voice was sing-songy and thoroughly sarcastic.

A deep blush took hold of Krillins weary face as the fullness of the situation he had suddenly found himself in unfolded in his brain. "Err….. Nothing much, really," he offered lamely.

"Nothing much?" Roshi repeated. "It certainly seems to me like you've been busy!" He waggled an eyebrow and burst out laughing again, causing the young man in front of him to turn an even deeper shade of red.

"Master, please!" Krillin begged, then a long yawn escaped his lips, temporarily silencing him. "How was your trip?"

"Who cares about our trip?!" Oolong heckled Krillin from the doorway, where he was still standing in disbelief, "Where the hell did you get a kid from?!"

Krillin rolled his eyes and took a long deep breath. Somewhere in the back of his sleep deprived mind, he had known that this day, and this conversation would eventually arrive, but he had just been pretending that it wouldn't. "Alright," he sighed, "What do you want to know?"

"Everything!" Oolong demanded.

Roshi, having now recovered from his laughter, sensed that he might need to be a bit more tactful here, "How about you start from the beginning?"

And so he did. Krillin began to spill the whole story to his two housemates, he didn't want to at first, but the more he spoke, the more he opened up. It was cathartic, he realized, having someone else to talk to this about. Until now, it had only been him and 18 who had been dealing with it, and they were both far too tangled up in the situation and too angry and emotional with each other to be able to discuss it with any kind of perspective.

"Anyway, after that, she took off and I haven't seen her since. That was three days ago," Krillin ended the story with 18 fleeing after they had argued on the beach the other day. "And 18 thinks that Marron doesn't love her, but she's barely stopped crying since she left" he added, his voice thick with fatherly concern.

Roshi sat quietly and stroked his beard as he contemplated everything he had just heard. It was a strange and convoluted story, not the most bizarre thing that had ever happened on his little island home, not by a long shot, but certainly not something he had expected to come home to, either! There was one small part that stood out to him though, he knew it was none of his business to ask, but he just couldn't resist. "Marron?" he inquired gently, and had to stifle a laugh as he watched the color come rushing back into Krillins cheeks. "Really?"

This time Krillin actually laughed and smiled, "I know, I know," he defended himself, "but she needed a name and 18 suggested Piccolo! I had to come up with something before she settled on that!" He looked down lovingly at his sweet little girl, "Besides, it's a nice name, it suits her."

Roshi watched on proudly, enjoying the tender moment between the man whom he considered his son and his own new daughter. It was a memory that would stick with him for a long time to come, "It does," he agreed warmly.

* * *

Roshi may have been surprisingly welcoming of the newest addition to the family when she had been all sweet and happy, but now, 12 hours later, as Marron's relentless screaming pierced the otherwise silent night, Krillin had a feeling that his master might be reconsidering his position.

"Marron, please" he all but begged, as she wailed inconsolably in his arms, "what's wrong?"

He was greeted with only more screaming.

"I know, I know," he tried his best to sooth Marron, placing a kiss on her brow as he walked laps around the living room, having been banished from his usual track on the second floor landing, "You miss your mummy. She'll be back soon little firefly." It was a statement that he was praying was true.

Come sunrise, it would be four days since their argument on the beach, which had ended with 18's running away to who knew where. He would have chased after her if he could of, but even if it weren't for the fact that someone needed to stay with Marron, he would never have been able to catch her anyway. She was too fast for him to keep up with at her top speed, and she had no Ki to follow. As soon as she was out of his sight, she may as well have been anywhere in the universe.

If only she could be here now to see what affect her leaving had had on her daughter. She thought that Marron didn't love her, or was scared of her or some other equally as silly nonsense, but that fact that she had spent almost all of the last three days crying and fussing said otherwise.

She had spent 9 months nestled safely inside her mother's womb, where she knew nothing but warmth and safety and the sound of 18's voice. Of course she loved and needed her mother now that she was on the outside, it was ridiculous to think otherwise.

Looking up at the clock on the wall, he noted it was nearing 4am and sighed, he had not had any sleep tonight. Only a few more hours and the sun would be up. His weary eyes scanned the walls of the living room, trying desperately to focus on something, anything, to keep himself from falling asleep as he walked, and they rested on a picture of Goku.

Despite himself, Krillin smiled, this particular picture was probably one his favorites of Goku. It was quintessentially him. He was sitting at the table here in the Kame House kitchen, wearing a ludicrously bright pink shirt – one that Chichi had no doubt had to custom sew for him so that his massive biceps would fit through the sleeve holes, honestly, that man's proportions were out of control. All around him, sat piles and piles of empty plates and dishes, probably every piece of serving wear they owned had been used. Goku himself sat, leaning back on the two hind legs of the chair, his hands resting on his bloated stomach, with a big, goofy grin on his face, like he didn't have a care in the world.

And he probably didn't. Goku had never been the kind of guy to let his role as protector of the Earth get to him. Krillin could remember the exact day this picture had been taken, it had been he himself who had snapped it. It was during peaceful times, Trunks had already appeared to warn them of the coming of the androids, but it was still too far away for anyone to be overly concerned about.

If only Krillin had known then, just how right Trunks' prediction was. His world really was going to change forever with the arrival of the androids, just not in the way the lavender haired boy had described.

What would Goku do, if it were him in this situation? Krillin mused, still staring sleepily at the portrait. He certainly wouldn't be moping, that was for sure. He would of thrown himself head first into this new challenge. But he wasn't here. The familiar guilty thoughts began to worm their way back into Krillins poor, sleep deprived brain.

It was his fault that Goku was dead, why hadn't he pushed that damn button? He thought he had suffered as much as a man could over the past two years, but now the universe had decided he needed to suffer some more, by sending him the sweetest, cruelest gift of all.

Goku was up there in other world, not even aware of the fact that he was now the father of two amazing boys. He had given his life to save Gohan, Chichi and everyone else who happened to call Earth home, to clean up Krillins mess, and now as a thanks for all he had done, he was missing out on watching young Goten grow up, and seeing Gohan develop into the impossibly powerful young man he was always destined to be.

Yet at the same time, Krillin had been given what Goku was denied. He had been trusted with a precious, tiny life, someone to love and care for and protect. His mind was such a mess of emotions; happiness, sadness, guilt, anger, worry, frustration, regret, confusion. And that was all without even touching the can of worms that was 18. How she fit into all of this and what he did or did not feel towards her was something he was nowhere near ready to confront just yet.

"Krillin!" Oolong suddenly appeared on the landing of the second floor, and he looked angry, "I don't care what you have to do to get it done, but will you please shut that kid up?!" he fumed.

Krillin almost snapped at the pig, did he honestly think he wasn't trying to get her to sleep? He managed to bite his tongue this time though, "Sorry, Oolong," he muttered, and shifted Marron's position in his arms so he could rock her more comfortably, "I'm trying."

"Yeah," Oolong frowned down at the dejected looking man, "Well try harder! I need my sleep."

* * *

The first rays of dawn light were just starting to appear on the horizon, coating the world in a soft golden glow. 18 stood at the jagged edge of a steep cliff top taking it all in. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and the tips of her boots extended just over the edge of the plateau.

Far down below her, a road snaked its way around the mountain and she watched with disinterest as a few cars and trucks travelled along it.

The wind was howling all the way up here, but it didn't bother her. She stood as still as a statue, refusing to bend to the will of Mother Nature. Her eyes followed a truck along the road until it disappeared into a tunnel, and a smirk settled on her pretty face.

It was hard to believe the carnage that had occurred here at her hand. Half the mountain side had been blown out of existence that day, and yet here it was, replaced as if nothing had happened.

Why was the universe so hell bent on covering up any proof of her existence? Her victorious smirk transformed into a bitter scowl.

She knew what had happened here though. The battle she had fought here against the self-proclaimed 'Prince of Sayians' had been the one and only time since her activation that she had been able to experience what she was truly capable of. The memories were so vivid that if she closed her eyes she would of believed it was happening all over again.

Vegeta was a smug, arrogant bastard and 18 had taken great pleasure from beating him down. She had felt truly unstoppable, barely breaking a sweat, as she systematically destroyed him. His cries of pain echoing off the mountainside as she jammed her boot into his broken arm had been music to her ears. She would never forget the exhilarating rush she had felt as together with her dear brother, they had taken down Goku's gang with little more than a flick of the wrist. The world had fallen at her feet that day.

17\. A pang of sadness tore through her, erasing her momentary cockiness. What she wouldn't give to see him again. Even the idea of another road trip across the countryside didn't seem so bad now. 17 had been obsessed with the 'game' of humanity. He wanted to do everything the way the humans would do it, which was how they had found themselves in that god forsaken, smelly van in the first place. They had spent days and days driving a distance that they could have covered in a matter of hours if they had of flown. She had hated every second of it at the time, but now, they had become some of her most treasured memories. Some of her only memories.

The entirety of the life she was able to remember had not been easy, from the moment of her activation, she had struggled to understand everything about it. She knew now that she existed to serve two purposes. To kill Goku first, and then once she was no longer useful, to be absorbed by Cell to help him achieve his perfect form. Gero had never planned on her being around long term, and so hadn't bothered to equip her with any understanding of humanity – either her own, or anyone else's.

Of course, her creators' grand plan had had some fairly severe flaws, which had resulted in the mess that was 18's life post Cell. She had woken up on that bizarre lookout, with no idea what was going on. Her last memory had been being absorbed, so how she had arrived there was a mystery. Of course, she had then had her run in with Krillin, where he had wished the bombs from her body, and inferred that 17 was her boyfriend. Disgusting.

After that she was alone. She didn't know where she was, or who she was. Her whole life consisted of the few days she been given after her activation, and a series of nightmarish memories of the time Gero had spent 'working' on her and her brother, memories that she would of done just about anything to forget.

Her world had changed so much since that day on the highway that had started it all. She shouldn't even be alive right now, yet here she was, and she just couldn't understand why. Why had the universe seen fit to spare her, only to abandon her again anyway? She had been dumped into a world that she didn't belong in and was incapable of understanding. Her only companion had been spared the same fate, it seemed, dooming her to an eternity of loneliness.

If only 17 were here. 18 hopefully lifted her eyes to the sky, desperately wanting this to be the time she would spot him. Of course though, only an empty sky starred back at her.

She knew, deep down, that Krillin had been right that day on the beach. 17 was dead. He hadn't been deemed human enough to be revived by Shenron's wish. Still though, there was a nagging that she just couldn't ignore. Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was desperation. Whatever it was, it made 18 incapable of giving up the search for her brother.

Everything about her life was a total mess right now and she had no idea how to fix it. As it was, she had been running away from her problems for 4 days now. She had been flying from place to place, just like she used to, using her search for 17 as an excuse to stay away from the island. But she knew her time was almost up. She needed to go back and face the music, and even worse, the wrath of Krillin. If the fates had fallen differently, and it was 17 who had been spat out by Cell, it would have been her that had been deemed 'not human' enough to be revived by Shenron. How could someone who could be classed as 'not human' ever be a mother? What could she possibly offer a child? What could she offer anyone, except heartache and misery?

"Aaaaaargh!" her confusion was suddenly replaced by blistering anger. White hot energy exploded around her, lighting up the calm, predawn sky. She was angry and upset with the entire world and everyone in it, and there was only one person for her to take out that anger on.

* * *

What was that?! Starring up into the sky, Krillin scanned the horizon, his eyes squinting against the bright sunlight.

At first he had been angry after 18 had taken off and not returned by nightfall. Then, as the days had dragged on, he had started to worry. What if something had happened to her and she was hurt? What if she had decided that this was all too hard and was never coming back? He had gotten used to having her around the island, even if they did constantly fight and bicker with each other. He wanted her to come back, he needed her to help him raise their daughter.

Now, as he again spotted a shimmering speck off in the distance, he was furious. At himself for missing her, and at her for being missable in the first place. It was probably the fact that he had had about 6 hours sleep in the last four days, which was preventing him from thinking straight, but as soon as 18 was close enough to the island that he was absolutely sure it was her, he charged.

He caught 18 completely off guard as he materialized directly in front of her, and managed to get in the first attack, planting his fist squarely into her jaw.

This was what 18 was made for though, and her reflexes were as fast as lightening. She was ready for him before he had even had a chance to think about his next move. She launched herself at him with an angry growl, triggering an all-out war between the two. Arms and legs were flying everywhere in a flurry of activity that was so fast that no normal human would have been able to keep track of it.

All bets were off now, and neither of them were holding back, they sparred intensely for almost twenty minutes, working out all the frustrations of the last few days. They both knew that this battle was the inevitable conclusion to their fighting. Even long before Marron had been born, it had been leading to this. An ultimate, no holds barred, no holding back war. After this, one of them would be dead, or they would have to put this childishness behind them once and for all.

18 hurled an energy beam at Krillin, and another, and another, all of which he dodged while shooting his own attacks back at her. Finally, she managed to hit him, and he went plummeting down into the ocean below with a mighty splash.

Her chest heaved up and down as she gasped for air, and blood trickled down from the corner of her mouth. It seemed she had been under-estimating Krillins abilities all this time.

Assuming she had taken the victory, 18 began to power down. Her energy dissipated around her and her muscles began to relax as she straightened up out her of fighting stance. Had she been paying attention to the water below her, she would have noticed that it was starting to bubble and pop. But she was so distracted by her rambling thoughts that it wasn't until she heard the crackling energy of Krillins Kamehameha Wave hurtling towards her that she realized the fight wasn't over just yet.

Turning around to face the electric blue wave, her eyes grew wide with shock. It was massive. Instinctively, she threw her body to the side, away from the deadly center of the beam. She wasn't quite quick enough to escape it entirely though, and was still engulfed by the edge of the wave. It stung like a million tiny insects all biting her at once. Pain tore through her as her body began to spasm, and she fell helplessly into the sea.

Krillin was spent. He watched from where he bobbed up and down in the water as his attack connected with its intended victim, and she dropped silently from the sky. Every breath he took sent shockwaves of pain through his chest, making him all but certain that he had at least one broken rib, probably more.

18 surfaced not too far from him, coughing and spluttering, desperately trying to suck precious oxygen into her lungs. She whirled around to face Krillin and he saw fire burning in her eyes. Usually when she looked at him like that, he would back down from whatever fight they had gotten themselves into. But not today. She couldn't just disappear for four days and then expect to show up and have him act like everything was perfectly okay. Everything was not perfectly okay. Far from it. He was pissed off, sleep deprived and sick of sparing her feelings.

"Stop!" he panted as soon as 18 opened her mouth, no doubt to hurl some abuse at him, "I don't want to hear it!"

Surprise briefly registered on 18's face at hearing Krillins outburst. It wasn't often than he had the audacity to speak back to her like that, especially when she was in a mood like this. Quickly though, she regained her composure, hoping that she was successfully tricking Krillin into thinking that she was in control of her emotions.

Slowly, Krillin hauled himself up out of the ocean and headed for the beach, and 18 followed silently along behind him.

Roshi, who had come out onto the porch to sticky beak when the initial commotion had broken out between the pair, quickly scuttled back into the safety of the house as they approached. Not before 18 saw him however. 'Great…' she thought to herself. As if this day couldn't get any worse, now it seemed the pervy old man was back from his trip. Fantastic.

"Where the hell have you been?" Krillin demanded as soon as he was out of the water, wasting no time with pleasantries, "You can't just leave like that!"

"You don't get to tell me what I can and can't do, Krillin!" 18 forcefully reminded him. If looks could kill, the one she was giving him right now would have meant certain death for the small human. He wasn't backing down though, not today.

"18! You are a mother!" Krillin shouted, as he watched the blonde woman turn her back on him and stomp angrily down the beach. "Your daughter needs you! Stop being so god damn selfish, and think about her for five seconds instead of yourself!" He was so angry now that his words were completely bypassing his brain filter. No sane person would ever say something like that to someone as deadly as 18 under normal circumstances.

That did it. Krillin knew he had struck a nerve and he swallowed apprehensively as 18 stopped, spun on her heel and marched back towards him. She kept coming and coming, stopping only when their faces were mere inches apart. They stared at each other intently for a long moment, each trying to read the thoughts of the other. Then 18 reached out and shoved him, hard, right in the chest.

Pain shot through his already tender sides, and he was unable to breathe for a moment as he landed unceremoniously in the sand with a heavy thud. The burning he now felt in his chest definitely confirmed his cracked rib hypothesis. Fighting against the pain as best he could, Krillin forced his eyes open. 18 stood towering above him, arms crossed over her chest. Her dripping wet hair was clinging to her face, but that didn't make her seem any less scary. She looked down on him in utter disgust – as if he was some kind of filthy bug she was deciding whether or not to squash.

"Selfish?!" she roared as Krillin slowly tried to push himself into a sitting position. She lifted her boot and pushed it into his shoulder, knocking him back down into the sand. "Get a grip, Krillin! The only one around here who can be accused of selfishness is you!"

He wanted to reply, to tell 18 that she had no idea what she was talking about and to please go away forever, but the blonde still had him pinned down with her boot, trapping him beneath her, and she had no plans to let Krillin speak until she had said every last thing that she had to say.

"You mope around this island all day, every day claiming responsibility for Goku's death, and yet what have you done to honor his memory? Nothing! You haven't done a single thing since his death that would make him proud of you!" 18 accused, not caring if she hurt Krillins feelings or bruised his ego.

"I know more about Goku than he probably knew about himself! I know that he lived for his friends, and he died for them too! So don't you for even a second pretend that you are doing what he would have wanted by shutting out the people he loved and who love you, because you aren't! All you are doing is sitting here hoping that your friends are thinking 'poor Krillin' to themselves, 'he's really not taking this well,' because that gives you an excuse to treat people like shit. And you have the nerve to call me selfish!"

Krillins mouth hung open in utter disbelief, he tried to say something, but his brain was so consumed by white hot rage that it was unable to produce words. He tried to stare her down, hoping to intimidate her with his glare, but he was no match for her icy blue eyes, and he only ended up feeling even more vulnerable.

"Leave," was all he managed to say when he did eventually find his voice. There was a deadly tone to it which 18 had never heard before, but she didn't flinch. Had Krillin forgotten who he was dealing with here? He may have managed to get a few hits in on her just now, but she still outclassed him in every area by a long way.

Casually, 18 pushed her damp hair back off her face, "I will do no such thing."

"Leave. Now." Krillin gave her a final warning through gritted teeth.

"No," 18 finally lifted her boot from Krillins shoulder, allowing him to get up off the sand. He stood before her, fists balled at his sides and his whole body shaking with rage.

"You might not like it, Krillin, but it's the truth and it's about time you confronted it. Is the type of man you really want to be for your daughter?" She looked at him and for a moment, almost felt sorry for him. She had always known that he was a little bit damaged, so was she, but now she was looking at a man who was starting to realize for the first time, just how broken he truly was.

"You have the opportunity to learn from your past," 18 continued, her tone still cold, but it carried a slightly less deadly edge now. "That is a luxury that not all of us are lucky enough to have. Think about that."

Knowing that she had said all that she could say, 18 turned and headed for the house. He may not have liked it, but she had given Krillin the truth that he so desperately needed to hear. It was up to him now, to decide what he wanted to do with it.

* * *

A/N: I'd love to know what you thought of this chapter, they're both trying so hard to fight against them, but as the saying goes, old habits die hard. Next chapter will see our fave couple start to move in the right direction.

Reviews, thoughts, comments, criticisms are, as always, very much appreciated. And a big thank you to everyone who has added Unbroken to their alerts list, I'm glad you are enjoying it!

The aim is to have one more chapter out before Christmas, but my kids finish school next week, so no promises! If not, I wish you all a wonderful Christmas and I hope that Santa comes and bring you all exactly what you've asked for!

Much love,  
-Deadly Beauty


	6. Chapter Five

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Dragonball franchise. This is just a work of my imagination.

A/N: Hello, hello and welcome to chapter five of Unbroken! I hope everyone has had a really great Christmas and New Years and got a chance to have a break and relax a little! I enjoyed writing this chapter, and I hope you all enjoy reading it! I'd love to know what you think!

\- Deadly Beauty

 **Unbroken**

 **Chapter Five**

The swing door groaned as 18 pushed her way through into the kitchen. Roshi was already sitting at the table, sipping a cup of tea, his eyes drifting over a newspaper with disinterest.

"Morning," he gave up with the paper, and dropped it back onto the table. It was a week old anyway, and filled with nothing but misery; something his little home had more than enough of at the moment.

18 grunted by way of response as she yanked the fridge open and pulled out a bottle. After giving it a shake, she put it in the microwave and set the timer. "Morning," she eventually responded properly, if not groggily, as she flicked the switch on the kettle and it started to boil.

"I didn't hear the little one last night." The inflection in the old mans' voice let 18 know it was more of a question than a statement.

"No?" she asked as she scooped coffee and sugar into her mug, "She was up for a feed at eleven and three." The kettle boiled and she splashed in some water and milk before taking a small, tentative sip to test the heat. It was perfect.

"Is Krillin here?" she asked, changing the subject. The microwave beeped and she removed the bottle and gave it another shake. "He's supposed to be taking Marron after this feed."

Behind his glasses, Roshi's eyes glinted mischievously. He was up to something. "Not sure," he replied with a shrug of his shoulders, "You'll have to knock on his door and find out." He quickly took a big gulp from his tea, hoping to hide his childish giggle behind the mug.

"Really?" 18 asked pathetically. "You know I can see straight through your tricks, right?" She finished with a bewildered shake of her head.

Roshi wasn't so bad, she'd decided. Sure, he was absolutely the pervy creep that Krillin had always made him out to be, but he was far too intimidated by 18 to ever try anything with her. And so far at least, he had been nothing but accommodating to both herself and Marron. She guessed that this house had been home to a slew of crazy visitor over the years, she might not of even been the craziest among them, a fact which 18 found strangely comforting. She liked the idea of being just another visitor through the revolving doors of Kame House.

"Is he here or not?" she asked again, much more bluntly this time.

Roshi, sensing the time for jokes was now over, replied. "He is not."

"Hmmmm," taking a long sip from her coffee, 18 mulled over this new information, "Probably for the best anyway, we both know I'm the last person he wants to be around right now."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Normally, 18 would have dismissed Roshi's comment as him just trying to say what he thought she wanted to hear, so as to avoid getting his head kicked in, but there was something about his tone of voice that intrigued her. "What does that mean?" she asked.

"I've known Krillin almost his entire life, he is like a son to me. He has faced a lot of challenges over the years, but he has always had his friends to lean on. Losing Goku," Roshi paused for a moment, looking for the right words, "it affected him more than any of us ever imagined it would. It changed him. I know he didn't like it, but he needed to hear what you said to him. You were right of course, about all of it, and one of these days he's going to thank you for being the only one of us who was brave enough to say it."

"Thank me?" 18 scoffed, she couldn't imagine a more ridiculous scenario if she tried. "I very much doubt that. He has barely spoken a word to me in a week!" Having said all she thought there was too say, 18 quickly drank the rest of her coffee and turned to leave. She had her hand on the door when Roshi's voice stopped her in her tracks.

"Do you know where he went today?"

"Where?" she asked, looking back over her shoulder at the old man.

"To visit Chichi and Gohan."

Quickly, 18 snapped her head back around in an attempt to hide the look of startled shock on her face. "Really?" she asked, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice, that was the last thing she had expected to hear him say. "Interesting."

Leaving Roshi to his morning routine in the kitchen, 18 walked across the small living room, scooping Marron up from the couch as she went, and headed outside. It was hot and humid this morning, she noted, as she settled down on the porch, with her back resting against the house and her long legs stretched out in front of her. Thick grey clouds rolled across the sky above her, and the wind whipped up violent choppy waves in the sea that surrounded her. Already, after only a few moments outside, she could feel a thin layer of sweat starting to cling to her, and she grimaced with mild annoyance, it was going to be a shower every forty-five minutes kind of day.

Carefully, 18 propped Marron up in her lap and placed the bottle into the hungry girl's mouth, she sucked at the teat so eagerly that milk dribbled all down her cheeks and chin, soaking the neck of the singlet she was wearing. 18 had to laugh at her daughters' greediness as she wiped the mess from her chin; that was certainly a trait she got from her father.

Fighting with Krillin, she was beginning to see, was probably the best thing that could have happened for 18's relationship with her daughter. It had forced her to stop relying on him so much, and to start trusting her instinct. She was feeling so much more comfortable and confident around Marron now. Of course, there were still moments – many of them, actually, where she felt overwhelmed and out of her depth with it all, but she was beginning to understand that those were feelings that all new parents had and were not at all unique to her situation.

The more she bonded with Marron, the more she understood why Krillin had gotten so angry at her after she had run away. She was only just starting to get a taste of the all-consuming desire to protect her daughter that he had been feeling her entire life, but she understood now, why it had seemed so barbaric to him. It was starting to feel barbaric to her too. The thought of something happening to this tiny life she had been charged with sickened her. She too, was starting to feel that uncontrollable, instinctive desire to keep her daughter safe at all costs.

She glanced down at Marron, who had finished guzzling down her breakfast and whose eyes were now growing heavy in the way only that only someone with a full tummy could, and smiled, in that moment she knew two things with absolute certainty. One, she loved her daughter, there was no question about it, and two, she owed Krillin an apology.

* * *

The flight, which should of taken four hours, had just ticked over into its' fifth when the small dome shaped home came into view. In the past, seeing this house had always filled Krillin with excitement, but today his small body was filled with dread.

Yesterday, after a week of giving himself pep talks, he had worked up the courage to pick up the phone and call Chichi, he didn't really know what he had expected to come of the conversation, but it certainly hadn't been an invitation to visit. Yet here he was, not even 24 hours later, hovering above a home he had not laid eyes on in over two years.

There was no turning back now, Gohan would know from his Ki signature that he was right outside their door, but he still had to fight the urge to just turn away and blast off back home. Not that he didn't have problems there either, but at this particular moment in time, they seemed like the better problems to have.

He dropped out of the sky and landed on the ground below, which was covered in a light dusting of fresh, powdery snow. This place, that he had once considered a second home, suddenly felt like an entirely different planet, and he realized that he was in over his head.

He reached out to knock on the door; even that felt strange to him when in the past he would have just walked straight in like he was family. His fingers twitched nervously, trying to unfurl themselves from the fist he had balled them into.

The door flung open just as his knuckles were about to connect with it and his hand sailed through the suddenly vacated air and almost directly into Gohans' face. What a start to the day that would have been, punching an unsuspecting teenager in the head!

"Krillin!" the young half Sayian boy exclaimed as he threw his arms around his friend, seemingly oblivious to the narrowly avoided assault, "I've missed you!"

"Hi Gohan!" Krillin gasped as the air was squeezed from his lungs. He was a lot taller than he remembered, now towering above his own slight frame. His goofy personality didn't seem to have changed at all though.

Chichi appeared in the doorway behind her eldest son then, drying her hands on her apron as she approached. "Gohan, move." She pushed him out of her way and wrapped Krillin in a warm, heartfelt hug, "it's so good to see you," she smiled into his shoulder as he awkwardly returned her embrace.

"Come in, come in!" she exclaimed as she pulled away, "it's freezing out here!"

Knowing all too well what happened to people who didn't obey the petite woman's orders, Krillin did as he was told and followed her into the house. Gohan danced circles around him as they followed Chichi down the hall to the heart of the Son household, the kitchen, he was full of questions, not waiting for the answer to one before firing another at him. It was overwhelming for a man who had spent two years almost completely silent and alone.

"Gohan, be a dear and pour Krillin a cup of tea would you?" Chichi asked as Krillin slid down into a seat at the kitchen table, "and then it's time to get back to your studies. There will be plenty of time to talk later."

"But muuuuuum," Gohan protested, but Chichi cut him off before he could state his claim.

"This is not a debate." It was clear there was no room for argument, "pour the tea and leave us to speak, please."

"Fine," Gohan knew better than to argue with his mother. He did as he was told and placed a steaming hot mug of tea down in front of Krillin before sulking out of the room.

After pouring her own tea, and producing a delicious looking cake from the oven, Chichi settled into her own seat at the table, across from her guest, "How are you, Krillin?" she asked, her eyes filled with concern.

How to answer that, Krillin wondered. He tried to hide his nervousness behind his mug by taking a big sip, it was of course, delicious. Shouldn't this whole situation be reversed, he thought as he drank. Shouldn't he be the one trying to console his best friend's widow? Ugh, why had he agreed to come here? He wasn't ready for this.

"It doesn't really matter how I am," he eventually mumbled. "How are you?"

"I asked you first," Chichi evaded his question with a sly grin.

His shoulders slumping unceremoniously, Krillin admitted defeat, "I'm…." he stumbled on his words, suddenly overcome by a bout of shyness. "I'm so lost without him," his voice trembled as he tried to fight back all the emotions he was feeling.

"Oh Krillin," Chichi's heart broke for the poor man in front of her. Krillin was one of her oldest friends, they had known each other practically since they were children, he and Goku had always been inseparable. There had not been an event in their lives, whether it had been as big as the birth of their first son, or as small as Chichi bringing him home a treat from the store, that Goku had not wanted to share with Krillin. "You know that he is always watching over us."

The sympathetic smile on her face only served to make Krillin feel worse, and when she reached out and placed a comforting hand on top of his, it took everything he had not to recoil in ashamed horror. He was disgusted with himself right now. His actions, his attitude, his emotions, he hated them all.

"No one blames you, you know." The thick, unpleasant silence was broken by Chichi's apparent ability to read minds, "Not me, or Gohan or anyone."

Krillin turned his head away in revulsion, "Well you should," he spat, before he had had a chance to really think about what he wanted to say.

Chichi winced at the self-directed maliciousness in his voice, "But we don't" she reiterated gently. "I knew what I was signing up for when I married Goku. I've always known that there was a very real possibility that one day he was going to walk through that door and never come back. I made my peace with that a long, long time ago."

Tears stung at the corners of his eyes, and Krillin blunk furiously to try and hold them back. This was not how he had imagined this visit playing out. In his mind, he had seen himself begging and groveling for Chichi's forgiveness as he tried to explain his actions that day to her. He had expected the coldness and hostility that he had convinced himself was all he was worthy of, and so was utterly unprepared for the love and acceptance he was now receiving instead. It was almost as if his brain had forgotten how to accept kindness.

"I'm…. so sorry Chichi," he sniveled, unable to accept the fact that his apology was completely unnecessary. "I acted so selfishly that day and it's haunted me ever since. I wish there was something I could do to fix what I've done."

"Stop." Chichi interrupted him, her sudden change of tone from compassionate to frustrated startled Krillin and he followed her orders, snapping his mouth shut. "I promise you, if it had of been Goku in your shoes that day, he would have done the exact same thing. He never would have taken a life he didn't feel it was absolutely necessary to take, you two are so alike in that way. You weren't acting selfishly, you did what human beings are designed to do, look out for each other. And I know that Goku was proud of you."

Inside, Krillin winced, if only Chichi knew the real reason why he hadn't pushed the button that day, she would probably be singing an entirely different tune right now. If she had of known that it wasn't some altruistic sense of human camaraderie that had been guiding his actions, but rather a stupid schoolboy crush, would she really be so quick to forgive him?

"Besides," he was snapped from his musings as Chichi continued to speak, "in case you failed to notice, we're doing okay here, better than okay, even. Of course we miss him every day, but life goes on, and you know as well as I do that he would not want us to spend the rest of our lives being miserable. Goku died so that we could all have a chance at a normal, happy life, and so we try our best to honor his memory everyday by doing just that."

Crying, a sound that had become all too familiar to Krillin over the last few weeks, suddenly filled the small house and he had to remind himself that it wasn't his baby who was fussing and he didn't need to rush to tend to it.

"I'll get him!" came Gohan's voice from somewhere else within the house.

"Any excuse not to finish his study," Chichi shook her head and grinned, "Just wait till you see him!" She was obviously referring to the youngest member of the Son family, who had just woken from his nap.

Wondering what exactly his friend meant by that, Krillin picked up a slice of cake and absent mindedly began to chew on it. Luckily it was delicious, because it was almost the last thing he ever tasted, as he almost chocked on it in shock when Gohan walked into the kitchen carrying his little brother on his hip.

"Meet Goten!" Chichi proudly boasted as she stood up and took the infant from her teenager.

Goten was almost an exact replica of his late father. Same goofy smile, same crazy hair and the exact same kind, dark eyes. It truly was as if Goku had come back to his family via this small boy.

"It's crazy isn't it?!" The expression on Krillins face let Gohan know exactly what he was thinking, "How much he looks like dad!"

Unable to find the words to express what he was seeing, Krillin instead just shook his head dumbly, causing Gohan to burst into a round of boisterous laughter, "Everyone has the same reaction!" he exclaimed with glee.

Chichi too, was laughing, and a big broad smile had taken up residence on her face. Poor Krillin didn't quite know what to make of the whole situation and sensing his unease, she turned her attention back to him.

"Goten is so much like his father it's almost scary!" she joked, "but every day he reminds us what Goku lived for. Of course we miss him, but we don't want to be sad when there is still so much in the world to be happy about."

"Besides," Gohan piped up, "it's not like he's going to grow up not knowing about dad! I tell him all about him every day, he even has a picture of him beside his crib."

"That's great, Gohan!" For the first time since he had arrived, Krillins mood began to lift. All this time, he had been hiding, all alone on the island, thinking to himself that if he missed Goku as badly as he did, then his family must be missing him a thousand times more. His mind had become an expert at conjuring up the exact right images. Ones that it knew would send him spiraling downwards into a pit of despair, where his anxieties reigned supreme, and could wreak whatever havoc they pleased. Visions of Chichi alone, crying herself to sleep at night or Gohan growing up with no one to turn too and guide him had plagued him for too long. Now that he was here though, seeing his friends with his own eyes, he could see that his imagination couldn't have been any further from the truth.

They missed Goku, of course, but while Krillin had been using his friends' memory as a self-torture device, they had been using those very same memories as inspiration to move forward and live their lives in his honor.

It was a total shift in attitude for the small man, one that until just this very second, he hadn't even been able to comprehend as a possibility. It had never even occurred to him that his way was not the only way to process grief.

Unknowingly, a smile wormed its way across his face as he watched his friends fuss over the toddler. They smiled and giggled as they played peek-a-boo, and Gohan pretended to be beaten in an arm wrestle, causing young Goten to completely lose himself to a fit of delighted squealing. It was a truly happy scene, Krillin could tell that no one was putting on a show just for his sake, this really was their family. His smile grew as he felt something stir inside of him; something he hadn't felt for a long time and thought he might never feel again – happiness.

* * *

It was late when Krillin finally touched back down on the island. He had stayed at the Son's longer than he had intended, Chichi had filled him in on all the gossip he had missed within the group since he had last seen them, and he had had a thoroughly enjoyable spar with Gohan, even if the teenager was a million times stronger than him. The day had started off awkwardly, which he guessed was to be expected, but they had quickly found their old rhythm, and after promising Gohan that he would return soon, he had left feeling like a completely different person to the man he had been that morning.

Despite the fact that the sun had long since set, it was still muggy, he knew it would be just as bad, if not worse, inside the house, the A/C unit was about as old as Roshi and barely worked at the best of times. Couple that with the fact that his mind was still reeling from the day's events, and he knew that sleep would struggle to find him tonight.

Instead of tossing and turning hopelessly in his bed all night, Krillin kicked of his shoes and headed to the far side of the island, where he nestled down into the still warm sand.

He laid back with his hands resting behind his head, and his toes buried beneath the grains and gazed up at the sky. The stars above him were innumerable, limitless and they stretched on forever. He doubted that there was another spot in the entire world that had a view like this.

How long he lay there, watching the moon drift across the sky, unravelling and assessing the day, he wasn't sure, but he felt lighter tonight than he had in years. For the first time in a long time, he was ending a day in a state of calm peacefulness. It felt liberating. Thoughts of Goku drifted though his consciousness, and for once, they weren't followed by guilt or despair, but happiness.

Slowly, his eyelids became heavy and his thoughts hazy. Sleep was just about to consume him when the sound of someone clearing their throat behind him jolted him back to the land of the living.

His eyes flung open upon hearing the sudden, jarring intrusion to the peaceful soundscape, and he shot up into a sitting position, sending sand flying in all directions. He turned his head and found 18 standing behind him, she had a sheepish almost timid look on her face.

"18…. Hi" he stuttered. He was surprised by her sudden appearance, both because of the late hour, and because he was still under the impression that they weren't talking to each other.

"Sorry," she avoided eye contact with him, looking awkwardly down at the sand, "I didn't mean to wake you. I was waiting for you to come inside."

"No, no, it's fine. I wasn't sleeping," Krillin flashed her a half smile and patted the sand beside him, "sit?" he offered.

After a brief moment of hesitation, 18 accepted the offer and settled down next to Krillin. She watched him curiously as he brushed some stray grains of sand from his arms and face, wondering how it was that this man could be both the person she knew better than anyone in the world, and someone who she knew nothing about at all. The latter was something she intended to change, but she had no idea where to even begin.

"Has it been this muggy all day?" Krillin asked, trying to fill the silence before it became uncomfortable

"No," 18 quickly replied, "It was much worse before."

Was that a hint of happiness Krillin had just heard in his companion's voice? Sneaking a glance across at her, he confirmed his suspicions, it may have been small, but it was there alright, a smile. And what a beautiful smile it was.

"Krillin, I…" the tone in 18's voice changed dramatically as she picked up a twig and twirled it nervously between her fingers, "I owe you an apology"

"No you don't" she was interrupted by Krillin speaking over the top of her, "Not even close. I deserved every last thing you said to me the other day. It was all true. The broken ribs I probably could have done without," he chuckled, "but the point remains."

"Good!" she exclaimed, "because that's not what I'm apologizing for. No question you deserved that!"

Krillin laughed along with her to try and hide his embarrassment, but the fact that his whole face had flushed an entirely new shade of red gave him away. He was glad it was dark, he felt like a moron.

"No," the light hearted interlude to 18's confession was over and the tone of the conversation switched again, "For before that. For running away."

"It's okay," Krillin replied, followed by a long deep sigh, "I get it. It's overwhelming."

"It's more than that though," Krillin adjusted himself in the sand, swiveling around so that he was looking directly at 18, and waited for her to continue speaking. "Watching you with Marron and seeing how good you were, you are, with her, it scared me."

"Scared you?" he didn't understand.

18 nodded somberly "You understood her right from the very beginning, and I just… didn't. I felt like such a failure next to you."

"You're not a failure," Krillin did his best to comfort 18, but even his best efforts felt weak, "I can't even imagine what you've been through since Marron was born. I'm the one who should be apologizing, I should have been here for you so much more than I was. We're in this together and I've been so selfish…" he trailed off, suddenly feeling overwhelmed with guilt, "not any more though."

18 looked up at him, surprise registering on her face, "really?"

"Really," he gazed back at her intently, "the last two years, I've let myself become an awful, awful person, I guess it was just easier than dealing with the pain, and I took it all out on you and I'll never forgive myself for that. But I'm so tired of living that life 18, and I'm so sorry, and if you'll let me, I'd really, really like to show you the real me." Krillin rambled on, hijacking 18's apology and turning it into one of his own.

The air was thick with silence as he waited for 18's response, and the knot of nerves in Krillins stomach grew larger with each second that ticked past. He didn't notice 18's subtle movements in the sand, it was too dark to see very much of anything, and so when he felt something touch his hand, he jumped, thinking it was a crab or something else pinchy. It wasn't a crab though, it was 18's hand gently resting on top of his own, she left it there for only a second, giving it a gentle squeeze before moving away again and smiling shyly at him. That one small action said everything he needed to hear though and he smiled broadly back at her, feeling for the first time in a long time, like everything was going to be okay.

* * *

A/N: So there's chapter five done and dusted. I've always been a bit confused by people who write 18 as totally hating on Roshi all the time. I'm sure they have their moments, but she obviously trusts him enough to be around Marron and be a sort of 'grand-dad' to her, so she mustn't think he is all that bad. Either way, it was fun writing their little interaction, this was a fun chapter to write overall really, it was nice to start to see a little bit of happiness coming their way!

As always would love to hear your thoughts on this one, and hopefully chapter six won't be too far away!

Much Love

-D.B


	7. Chapter Six

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Dragonball franchise. This is just a work of my imagination.

A/N: Eeek! Sorry this took so long! Anyway, it's here now and I really do hope you will enjoy it. I'd like to give a quick shout out to my beautiful friend and fellow K/18 enthusiast Cj4Dj! You've been a friend for more years than I can remember and I am thankful for all of them! Thank you for always being my #1 Fan!

-D.B

 **Unbroken**

 **Chapter Six**

Morning sunlight streamed in through the open window and directly into Krillins eyes, waking him from his peaceful sleep.

Rolling over, he was disappointed to discover that he was alone in the bed. Lately 18 had been joining in him in his room while Marron had her last feed of the night. Usually they would watch the late night news together, shaking their heads in disbelief at all the Hercule propaganda, wondering how exactly he had managed to trick the entire world into thinking he was their hero, and more often than not, 18 would fall asleep beside him, drifting off as she listen to Krillin tell stories of all the times Hercule hadn't actually saved the world.

His bed had always been his fortress of solitude, a place he had been reluctant to allow others, but now; he reached out and touched the empty space beside him – still warm, this bed seemed far too big for one.

So far, there had been nothing more than completely platonic bed sharing going on. They were taking this whole thing very, very slowly, getting to know each other as people and adjusting to their new lives as parents before any thoughts of romance even entered their minds. Krillins dismay at waking up alone though, hit him like a mini revelation. Maybe he was ready for things to speed up just a little bit.

Lazily, he climbed out of the warm bed and wandered across the hall into 18's bedroom, she wasn't in there, but Marron was, sound asleep in her crib sucking her thumb. For a moment he stood and watched the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as she dreamed, he could have happily stayed like this all day, just watching her. The words literally did not exist to describe the intensity with which he loved his daughter. She had given his life purpose where before there had been none. Carefully, so as not to wake his princess, he ran his hand over her soft head and smiled before turning and leaving the room in search of the other blonde in his life.

He found her exactly where he suspected he might, though it saddened him to see her there, sitting on the big flat rock down by the water's edge.

Cautiously, Krillin headed down the beach towards her. 18's mood was so unpredictable when she was down here, so he had learned to always approach with trepidation.

"Morning," he squeaked gingerly as he closed in behind her. There was of course, no sneaking up on 18, she was a master of reading Ki and was able to pinpoint his location on the island almost down to the centimeter, even when he wasn't exerting his energy.

Luck was on his side this morning though, it seemed, because 18 looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, before scooting over on her rock in a silent invitation to Krillin to join her.

"Good morning to you too," she replied as she took a cool glass of juice from Krillins outstretched hand. "Thanks."

"No problem," Krillin made himself comfortable beside 18 and took a sip from his own glass, "how did you sleep?"

18 turned to look at him, "fine," she grinned. "As always." The implication there being that 'always' meant since she had been sleeping in Krillins bed.

"Hn" he grunted bashfully while feeling the temperature of his face steadily climb.

The moment passed and 18 turned her attention back to the skies, her eyes scanning this way and that, but never finding what they were looking for.

"I'm sorry," Krillin spoke up. He knew he was risking putting 18 in a bad mood by doing so, but she seemed happy this morning, so he decided to take the chance, "That you were never able to find your brother. I wanted to be wrong you know? About what I said that day."

"I know," 18 replied absentmindedly as her gaze drifted across the horizon. She turned to face him again before she continued speaking, and the way her crystal blue eyes glittered in the early morning sunlight caused Krillins breath to catch in his throat and he felt himself fall just a little bit further under her spell. "All I used to care about was finding him, but now I'm kind of glad that I didn't."

"Really?" That was not what Krillin had expected her to say, he knew how important 17 was to her, "Why?"

"Because I have so much more to care about now," she smiled.

Instantly, Krillins mouth dried up like the Sahara. Was she talking about him? His brain tried valiantly to form a cohesive response, but all it could come up with was a stream of incoherent babble, not unlike the gibberish he heard from his three month old.

The combination of his bright red face and his mouth gaping open like a fish out of water was too much for 18 and she couldn't help but laugh at her companion. The sound was music to Krillins ears and made all his embarrassment worth it, he would gladly put himself through an entire lifetime of awkward moments just for a chance to hear her laugh.

"Anyway," 18 spoke once she had composed herself, "you could still be wrong. Just because I haven't found 17, doesn't mean he isn't out there somewhere, doing his thing," she paused for a moment, pondering the thought, "he always was kind of a loner."

"Hmm," Krillin mulled over her words, and shrugged his shoulders, "who knows…." With that, he stood up, his feet quickly sinking into the wet sand, and stretched his arms up into the sky. The warm sun felt invigorating against his bare chest and he closed his eyes and smiled. As 18 watched him, a smile grew on her face too, happiness was an emotion that she had truly believed she would never be able to feel, yet here she was, feeling it spread through her entire body like a warm glow.

"Bulma called yesterday while you were napping and invited me to Capsule Corp this afternoon, it's been a long time since I've seen her," Krillin looked down at the sand and ran his hands through his unruly bed hair, it was an action that 18 had come to realize as some sort of a nervous habit of his. "Would you mind if I go?"

"Mind?" 18 sounded surprised, "why would I mind? Go." She encouraged. "If you're worried about Marron, then don't be. We'll be fine."

"Are you sure? I'd probably be gone for most of the day."

"Krillin, are you implying that I'm not capable of looking after our daughter on my own for an afternoon?" 18 asked, the tone of her voice clearly suggesting that she was toying with him, but it went straight over Krillins head.

"No!" he burst out, "No! Not at all. Of course you are able to! I just…" he fumbled, looking for the right words, "I worry about something happening to either of you when I'm not around." The blush returned to the small warriors cheeks and he smiled sheepishly at 18. He knew how weak that sounded, 18 was more than capable of protecting herself and Marron, more capable than he was, in fact, but he didn't care. He was embracing his new found dad-lameness.

18's own cheeks felt flustered at Krillins little show of affection and it caught her off guard. "Just go and have fun," she turned her head and mock shooed him away, "Roshi is still here to protect us if evil breaks loose."

Now it was Krillins turn to emote, he flung his head back and laughed loud and deep, "Thank god for that!" he exclaimed as he wiped a happy tear from the corner of his eye, "Okay then, I'll call her and let her know I'm coming."

* * *

Was Capsule Corp. always this big? Krillin gazed down at the sprawling complex below him – an intricate maze of near identical dome shaped buildings, trying desperately to remember which one was the Briefs family home.

The compound was right in the middle of the thriving metropolis that was West City, he was surrounded by hustle and bustle in every direction, and it made him feel somewhat nervous. Living in such an isolated part of the world, it was easy to forget about the sheer volume of humanity that congregated in places like this – it was a jarring reminder of the responsibility he and his friends had been entrusted with. So many innocent lives to protect, and now one less of them to help do it.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts before they headed down a path he clearly recognized as dangerous, Krillin returned his focus to his original task. He was able to sense a massive power that he could only assumed belonged to Vegeta, and figuring it was a good a starting place as any, began his decent in its direction.

As it turned out, once he had landed, his memory was jogged and he was able to find his way to Bulma's front door. 'Please don't let Vegeta answer,' be begged as he knocked, took a step backward and waited to be greeted.

"Krillin!" the door swung open to reveal the last person he had expected to see.

"Yumcha? Hi." Krillin did a double take, "What are you doing here? Where's Bulma?"

Yumcha turned and headed back into the house, motioning for Krillin to follow, "Bulma? She's around, one of her assistants needed her in the lab. She shouldn't be too long. Coffee?"

Krillin did not understand the scene that was currently unfolding in front of him, he had so many questions, "Yeah, sure," he replied, his voice thick with confusion, "So what…. Do you live here?"

"Ha!" Yumcha exclaimed. "Hell no! Can you imagine living with Vegeta?" He stuck his tongue out and scrunched his face up as if he were a child being forced to eat his broccoli, "Bulma and I are just mates, that's all. I guess I do spent a lot of time here though, now that you mention it." He laughed bashfully.

"Yeah, I should start charging you rent, you big moocher!" Bulma exclaimed as she walked through a side door and into the room, she picked up a cushion off the couch and hurled it directly at Yumcha as she strolled right past him and towards Krillin. Without a word she wrapped him in a big hug and held him tight.

"Oh, I've missed you!" she said as she continued to strangle him, her cerulean blue hair tickled his face and made him itch.

Finally she pulled away, but not before planting a big kiss on his cheek, leaving a bright pink imprint of her lips behind.

"I've missed you guys too," Krillin wiped at the mark on his cheek, he didn't want to have to explain that to 18 later, "I was surprised when you called me yesterday."

"Well it didn't look like you were going to call me!" Bulma accused him as they sat down on the plush, expensive looking sofas in the middle of the room. Yumcha joined them, handing each of them a mug of coffee and keeping one for himself.

"What do you mean?" Krillin asked, he'd only been here for 5 minutes, and already he'd been confused in at least 10 different ways, which for him, sadly, was completely normal for a visit to the Briefs house.

Bulma scoffed, "what do you mean, what do I mean?" she joked, "Chichi told me you visited her _weeks_ ago," she emphasized the word weeks, for dramatic effect, "so I assumed it was only a matter of time before I heard from you too, but you're a big snob and you never called! And you know that if there is one thing I'm not, its patient. And I missed you, so I decided to take matters into my own hands!"

A wave of guilt crashed over Krillin and he instantly felt like a big jerk. Of course Chichi would have told Bulma about his visit, his coming out of hiding would have been big news within the tight knit group. "I'm sorry," he groveled, "I've been taking small steps, you know. I'm glad you called." He smiled at the pair of friends sitting across from him and was relieved to see two big grins reflected back at him. This wasn't going to be so bad. Heck, it might even be fun!

The trio chatted and gossiped for what ended up being hours, between them, their friendship extended back almost 20 years, and the adventures they had shared together were innumerable. They laughed until they cried as they reminisced though journeys past. Some of the decisions they had made at the time, now, with the wisdom and hindsight of adulthood seemed utterly absurd and really, downright dangerous, but still, those formative years together had shaped them into the people they were today, and they'd all turned out mostly ok.

Goku, of course, featured heavily in their stories, and Bulma and Yumcha threw his name around and talked about him as if he was sitting right there beside them. It still struck Krillin as painful, that people could move on in a world without Goku in it, and if he was totally honest with himself, he found it more than a little confronting, the way Bulma and Yumcha could speak his name with such joy.

It was something that he desperately wanted to be able to do to, and he was beginning to feel that with time, it would be possible. But he wasn't there yet. He had only just taken the first tiny steps on the path of healing, and while he recognized that he still had a long way to go, he was proud of himself for finally being ready to attempt it at all.

Still, that said, there was only so much Goku talk he could take before it started to get to and upset him, and when he started to feel those triggers, he did his best to change the subject.

"So, Bulma," he quickly skulled down the dregs of his third coffee, "is it just me, or has this place gotten bigger since my last visit?"

"Yes!" Bulma's eyes grew wide with excitement and she jumped up off the couch like a teenager. Beside her, Yumcha buried his head in his hands, he was so sick of hearing Bulma talk about her boring work. "We just finished our new robotics wing last year, it's huge! State of the art everything!"

"Robotics?" Krillin prompted her, "I didn't know Capsule Corp worked with robotics."

"We didn't, really," Bulma began, "actually, in a strange, round about sort of way, it was you who inspired us to delve into it! Follow me, I'll give you the tour!"

Krillin almost fell over, what exactly did Bulma know about him and what he had been up to? Quickly, he scuttled off down the hall towards her, "What does that mean?" he asked as he caught up.

"Well remember those blueprints for Android 17 that you gave to me?" she asked, not turning to look at him or slowing her pace.

"Yeah…" Krillin didn't really like where this was going.

"Well, after the whole Cell thing was over, dad and I sat down and had another really good long look at them and we just found them fascinating. Gero was a monster no doubt, but he really seemed to know what he was doing, I'll give him that. The work he did on the androids was flawless. He was years ahead of the rest of the scientific community. It's a shame really, that all that work had to go to waste."

If she had of turned around, Bulma would of completely changed her tone when she saw the look on Krillins face, he was not impressed, to say the least. "What do you mean, go to waste?"

"You know, when they were absorbed. C'mon Krillin, keep up!" Krillin wasn't sure if she was referring to the conversation or the walking, but either way, he didn't appreciate it.

"18 was revived."

Bulma stopped dead in her tracks, "Oh my goodness, you're right. I'd forgotten all about that. You don't happen to know where she is, do you?"

"No." Krillin lied bluntly, "Why?"

"Oh no reason," Bulma started walking again, "I'd just love to run some tests on her one day, if I ever got the chance, it'd be just awesome to get to see how those blueprints translate to the real thing."

A sarcastic, deadpan laugh escaped Krillins throat without his permission, there was absolutely no way on this Earth that 18 would ever, ever allow Bulma to experiment on her, and for that matter, neither would he.

Suddenly, he didn't feel like a tour anymore, "Actually, Bulma, it's getting late, I think it's time for me to head off."

"Oh, really?" Bulma's face fell, she'd been excited to show off her latest work to someone new. Yumcha was sick of hearing it, and Vegeta just downright refused to listen at all.

"Yeah, it will already be after dark by the time I get home, and I promised, uh…. Roshi, that I wouldn't be too late"

Bulma stared Krillin down with a suspicious raised eyebrow, "Roshi?" she asked, dubiously. "Okay then, but don't be a stranger you understand!"

"I won't, I promise." With that, the old friends shared a final hug, before Krillin blasted off into the sky towards his home, and more importantly, his family.

* * *

Marron kicked and splashed her arms and legs all around in the warm bath, sending water flying all over the bathroom. She squealed with delight as she seemed to realize her actions were causing the effect.

18 shook her head and wiped the soapy droplets from her cheek. Bath time used to be such a peaceful routine at the end of each night, but now, as Marron was getting bigger and beginning to understand that she could use her body to cause reactions, it was starting to become a rowdy mess.

"Now now, little one," she cooed as she used her free hand to gently clean Marron with a soft cloth, "I don't need a bath too."

Marron flashed her mother a big toothless smile and kicked her legs through the water again. Deciding that they were both wet enough for one night, 18 declared bath time officially over and lifted her 3 month old out of the tub and wrapped her in a warm, fluffy towel. She grizzled for a moment, not happy that her fun had come to an end, but quickly relented and snuggled into her mother's chest.

The moment wasn't lost on 18, she squeezed Marron just a little bit tighter, kissed the top of her head and inhaled her sweet baby smell. They had gotten off to a rough start together, that was for sure, but now, 18 just couldn't imagine a life without this tiny being. The past three months had taught her more about herself and more about humanity that any of Gero's stupid databases ever could. Every day she walked into the living room of the small home and looked at the pictures of Goku on the wall, and every day she was able to stare at them for a few seconds longer and ignore the mission objectives that flashed up in front of her eyes. It may have only been small steps, but every day she felt a little bit less under Gero's control and a little more under her own.

She knew there were some things about herself that she would never be able to change and the scars she carried with her would make it impossible to ever completely forget where she had come from. But she was also beginning to understand something else. That try as he might, Gero hadn't been able to completely change her either, and even though he had done a very good job of burying it somewhere deep down inside her, she still held onto some small piece of her humanity. Marron and Krillin were helping her to bring it out.

Krillin. The metamorphosis he had been undergoing since Marron's birth was truly amazing, and while she did have to admit that she was somewhat jealous that her own transformation would never be as dramatic as his, seeing the walls he had put up around himself start to come down made her happy. He may have lost himself for a while after Goku's death, but now, he was finding himself again, and 18 knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the man she had known before Marron had arrived was not the real Krillin. She was meeting the real Krillin now, for the first time, and he was kind and caring, compassionate and humble. He was funny and warm, trusting and trustworthy.

Trust was something that 18 did not give out easily. And why should she? Relying on anyone other than herself had never gotten her anywhere in the past, in fact, it was probably what had gotten her into this whole mess to begin with. But she was finding more and more that she was willing to put her trust in Krillin. There was something about him, that she couldn't quite put her finger on, that put her at ease. She could be herself around him without fear of being judged. Everything that 18 knew about herself, Krillin knew too. He knew about the additions, the removals, the scars, and yet he still smiled whenever she walked through a door. He had seen her at her absolute worst, her lowest of lows, and had still seen something there that he thought was worth holding on for. Nobody had ever looked at her the way he did, and she doubted that anybody else ever would.

It never took long after bath time for Marron to drift off, and soon she was tucked up in her crib, sound asleep. 18 pottered around the house for a little while preparing tomorrows bottles and taking a warm shower of her own, she tried to sit down and read a book, but kept catching herself looking at the clock. She wasn't waiting for Krillin, she tried to tell herself, but there was no point denying it. He had been gone since early afternoon, and the sun had set now, she missed his company. She missed the lame jokes he cracked and the silly conversations they had, she missed the way he made her feel totally at ease with herself. She missed him.

It was a strange sensation, to miss someone, the idea of relying on someone made her feel uneasy, but in a good sort of way that she wasn't used to. Giving up on the book, she headed upstairs and soon found herself in Krillins bedroom, where she flicked on the TV and nestled into the big pile of soft pillows. She felt her eyelids growing heavy, and she knew she should get some sleep before Marron woke up for her next feed, and so she gave in to her human needs and let herself drift off, hoping that when she woke up again, she wouldn't be alone.

* * *

Silently, with the skilled practice of a ninja, Krillin climbed the stairs to the second story of his home, expertly avoiding every squeaky step on the way up. His bedroom door was ajar and a faint glow was coming from inside, he grimaced as he headed toward it. Popping his head around the door, he surveyed the scene. The TV was on, but the sound had been muted, and 18 was sound asleep in his bed.

For a moment, he stood exactly as he was, just watching her, a million different thoughts and emotions running through his head. He'd been stewing over something the entire flight home and the knot forming in his stomach was starting to make him feel queasy. Turning away from his room, Krillin leaned his back against the wall and slumped down to the floor, he folded his arms over his bent knees and rested his head on them. Closing his eyes, he let the thoughts run rampant for five minutes, hoping they might miraculously sort themselves out, of course that wasn't the case and if anything, it only made things worse.

The problem was Bulma. Or, more to the point, something she had said earlier in the day. The mention of her desire to 'tinker' with 18, if she ever got the opportunity, had been completely innocent on her part, the blue haired scientist had no idea whatsoever of the goings on at Kame House over the last few months and years, and despite her tendency to be at times a teeny-tiny bit selfish, Krillin knew his friend well enough to know that if she had even an inkling of what was going on in his life, she would of kept her mouth shut about experimenting on 18.

No, the problem wasn't what was said, it was his own reaction to it that had startled him. He had physically felt the words slamming into him as they left Bulma's mouth, striking him with a blow so powerful they almost knocked the wind out of him. Even the mere mention of any sort of harm coming to 18 had caused him actual, physical pain. It was in that moment he knew. He was absolutely, unequivocally and totally in love with her.

Realistically, he knew that he had always known it, and not in the 'always' as in since Marron was born sense, but in the 'aaaaalways' ever since the very first day he laid his eyes on her kind of way. He'd known since that first moment that a life without her was not a life that he'd ever be willing to live. But then, well, then Cell happened and Goku happened and him going a little bit crazy happened and his poor brain had resembled a tumble drier for a while there, with everything getting mixed up and confused. It had been impossible for him to think about loving someone else when he had hated himself so much.

There was a second emotion he had experienced this afternoon too though. No sooner had the love shockwave rode its way through his body, than an aftershock of dread had shown up. What if something ever did happen to 18 – he had worked so hard to pull himself out of his Goku spiral that the thought of falling into an 18 spiral, of which he knew there would be zero coming back from, was more than a little bit scary. And the most terrifying thought of all, what if she didn't love him back? What if he put it all out there, put his heart on the line for her, and she gave him a 'thanks but no thanks'? Could she even love?

Yes, of course she could! Krillin mentally slapped himself for having such awful thoughts, as far as he was concerned, she was every bit as human as him and was as capable as anyone else was of experiencing the full gamut of human emotions. He saw the way she interacted with Marron, she could love alright. She did love, fiercely. No, the question wasn't could 18 love. It was could she love him?

There was no denying that their relationship had blossomed over the 12 weeks since Marron had been born. In what really, was a very short amount of time, they had both grown and changed so much. They were learning how to understand and compromise with each other, meaning that the fighting that had been so all consuming in the beginning was now becoming a thing of the past. Of course there was still the occasional sleep deprived brain snap, but that was to be expected. On the whole though, they were having far more good days than bad. They were enjoying each other and their daughter, but what if that was as far as 18 wanted it to go? She had been through so much, so much more than Krillin would ever be able to understand. It would be perfectly reasonable of her to want to distance herself from her emotions, she'd been hurt by everyone she had ever let get close to her.

"Uuuuuugh!" a frustrated moan echoed across the landing, why must everything in his life always be difficult? What he wouldn't give for just once, the answer to be easy and obvious and right in front of him.

"Krillin?" a confused voice broke him from his musing and he turned to look up at 18, standing in the doorway, corn silk bed hair plastered to her cheek and groggily rubbing sleep from her eye, and there it was. His answer. Easy and obvious and right in front of him. As he gazed up at the captivating beauty who had just wandered out of his bedroom, illuminated only by a silver moonbeam , it was as if there had never even been a question. He had to take the risk. "What are you doing out here?"

"Nothing," Krillin stood up and flashed her a goofy grin, to which she responded by rolling her eyes and disappearing back into the bedroom, the fact that she headed into his room and not her own was not one that was wasted on Krillin, and he found himself standing there, in the middle of the hall, grinning giddily like a school girl.

"Are you coming or not?" 18, who had already nuzzled herself back under the warm covers, called out to him. The drowsy smile that graced her lips when he appeared in the doorway was completely automatic.

He stood with his shoulder resting against the doorframe, hands stuffed in his pockets, smiling at her like a nervous idiot while she gazed drowsily back at him. "Go back to sleep," he eventually broke the comfortable silence between them, "It's almost eleven. I'll feed Marron and then I'll be in."

18 mumbled something in response, but it faded into nothing as she drifted back to sleep. Krillin lingered in the doorway for a moment longer, letting the scene sink deep into his brain. Something told him that in years to come, he would look back on his life and remember this as an important moment, and he wanted to etch every tiny detail into his memory.

This was the exact moment that he knew that things were going to be okay, that he was going to be okay. A swell of emotions rose up inside of him, like the tide crashing into the shore, and for the first time in a long time, he welcomed them.

The End.

* * *

A/N: I knew how I wanted this story to finish in my head, but I just couldn't get the words out right. As a result, I had about 95% of this written for at least a month and then just hit a wall. I think I was trying to cram one scene too many into this last chapter, and it just finished the whole thing on a note that was a little to 'cheery' given the tone of the rest of the story. I'm much happier with it now, without the extra scene. I feel like this is their happy ending without the over the top, 'happily ever after'.

So that's it for Unbroken. I know it's not perfect, but I hope that each of you who has read it has found something about it to enjoy. I know that I thoroughly enjoyed writing it. I love looking at Krillin and 18 from all different angles and I hope that if nothing else, you found this unique and interesting and worthy of your time.

As always, I appreciate any and all feedback, I love to hear your thoughts and opinions on my work and appreciate everyone who takes the time to review my writing! I have lots of idea brewing around in my head for new stories, so trust that it won't be very long until I'm back with something new!

Until then, thank you and see you around!

~Deadly Beauty


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